


Anima Ex Machina

by JXValentine



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Invasion, Gen, Science Fiction, Symbiotic Relationship, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 03:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 104,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JXValentine/pseuds/JXValentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unlucky scientist is forced to become the host of an alien pokémon. Now equipped with a new body, strange powers, and a long list of people wanting him as a lab rat or dead, stopping an alien invasion is the least of his worries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zero

 June 30, 1908. In the dim hours of that morning, a meteorite exploded over Siberian Russia. Modern scientists estimate that the energy had been equal to that of a thermonuclear bomb. Witnesses described it as a flash of blue light almost as brilliant as the sun. The shockwaves alone were enough to flatten over seven hundred square miles of forest. And the object itself? The size of two school buses end to end. Scientists called this the Tunguska event.

In order to picture what a meteor the size of one school bus could do, the logical action would be to divide everything by half. Take three hundred square miles of forest out of the Tunguska event. Dim the brilliant, blue light of the meteorite until it becomes a star half as bright as the sun. Imagine that the resulting air burst releases the energy equivalent to five hundred nuclear bombs instead of one thousand.

On September 27, 2000, almost one hundred years after the Tunguska event, that was exactly how scientists described the bus-sized meteor heading directly towards Earth.

The meteor in question was dubbed 2000 SE, and it came without warning. That in itself would have been unusual. There was astronomical equipment all over the world, and not one of them spotted an object of that size until it was almost as close as the moon. But that wasn’t what grabbed the media’s attention. What did was the fact that it was heading directly towards Earth, and with its speed, researchers estimated that it would reach the planet in four days. More specifically, it was heading to a point just outside of Fortree City.

Hoenn’s regional government had never staged a full-scale evacuation of an entire city. Despite monsoons and the activity of two weather-altering legendaries, the region was never threatened significantly enough to warrant an evacuation of that magnitude. But it had to be done. Certainly, Fortree had survived far more earthquakes, storms, and general natural disasters than it should have, what with it being a city built entirely in the treetops, but the Japanese parliament wasn’t going to assume that it would survive a meteor strike that close to its borders. So over the course of three days—the three days before 2000 SE would pass through the Earth’s atmosphere—the entire city of Fortree took what it could and left.

On the fourth night, it turned out that the government was correct in their decision. Fortree was doomed.

It rained fire the night 2000 SE exploded, and the blasts emanating from its shattering masked the cracking of the forest that held the city aloft. Had anyone been in the city, they would never hear the screaming of the wood supports splintering. They would never hear the boom of their homes falling. They would never hear the crashing of glass or the screeching of bending metal. Not while the air resonated with the blast of the meteorite, anyway. Only when the resonance of the explosion died down, and only when the skies fell silent, did the last shrieks of the falling city echo through the night air.

And then, there was silence.

Outside of the city, beyond the red-hot craters that the meteorites carved out for themselves, there were two listeners. The first was an absol who stood guard at the Ancient Tomb with his red eyes to the sky. His pack had already been gone for days. Many of them had been part of the pokémon exodus that started almost a week ago, long before the humans knew 2000 SE existed. Others stayed and tried to warn the humans, and this party departed after Fortree was finally evacuated. All that was left was the single absol, who had, up until the explosion, kept his red eyes to the sky and his teeth bared in a constant, low growl.

It was because he knew something else was going to happen. He could feel the cold, familiar weight of his premonitions in his bones, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see what he was meant to warn the humans about. And then, when the star exploded and sent a shockwave of trembling earth and hot wind across the route, the absol braced himself against the tomb’s rocky walls and gritted his teeth. The feeling in his bones grew heavier with each passing second until it reached a peak the moment the hot winds died down. His paws scrambled over the loose earth, and he raced down the hillside towards the craters. In his mind, his visions began to resolve, and all he could see was red.

The ground grew hotter as he drew closer to one of the impact craters, but he couldn’t stop. His entire body was focused completely on that cold, heavy feeling deep inside him—the feeling of his supernatural senses vibrating with his last vision. Any moment now, he would know. He would know exactly what message he needed to deliver.

Suddenly, the ground almost ended beneath him, giving way to the red edge of a crater. He stopped, staring deep into the pit at the rock that sat at its heart. His muzzle snapped in frantic barks, and he paced along the rim. All the while, he steadied his eyes on the glowing, red surface of the meteorite. Every pit in its face, every imperfection in the stone made the feeling deep inside the absol grow until it filled his entire being. Something wasn’t right. Something was about to happen. Something terrible was about to be born.

Then, he saw what he came to see. His paws froze, and his mouth shut.

A crack laced up the side of the meteor. At first, it was only an inch wide by a foot long, but then, it grew until it resembled a gaping smile turned sideways. The longer the absol stared at it, the more he realized that the glow was not coming from the surface of the rock but rather from within it, pulsing with every passing second like a heartbeat. This, the absol knew, was exactly what he was supposed to foresee. His lips puckered, and in that pause, he emitted a short, high-pitched whine.

That was when the meteorite cracked completely open and released the sea of red light. It rushed up the side of the crater before the absol could discern what it was, and within seconds, it washed over him.

Miles away, the absol’s pained howling echoed through the air, and the second listener raised her head.

Her name was Phoebe, and she had just completed two weeks of training atop Mt. Pyre. Now, she was descending the mountain for supplies. She had no idea that the absol’s howl was a warning.

That night, a war erupted because of her.


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet our hero (that poor bastard).

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 5_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT_  
 _DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPTION OF RADIO MESSAGE INTERCEPTED BY D.E.V.A. TEAM DELTA. LAST KNOWN TRANSMISSION SENT BY PROFESSOR MARSHALL BIRCH FROM RESEARCH POINT ZERO, COORDINATES 31°59′40″N 130°57′6″E.  
_ _DATE-TIME: 16/12/00, 04:37_

_BIRCH  
_ _Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? I repeat! Can anyone hear me? If you can hear this, this is Professor Marshall Birch of the Hoenn Pokémon Symposium. I’m here with nine other people and sixteen pokémon. We need help! Do you copy?_

_[NOISE IDENTIFIED AS A POOCHYENA USING ROAR OCCURS IN THE BACKGROUND.]_

_BIRCH  
_ _Please! Please, we’re at the ruins of Fortree City. Coordinates are—_

_[NOISE IDENTIFIED AS HUMAN SCREAMS OCCURS IN THE BACKGROUND.]_

_BIRCH  
_ _Oh gods, they’re getting closer. I don’t have much time! Those things, the pokémon that appeared in this area two months ago. They’re—_

_[NOISE IDENTIFIED AS GUNSHOTS OCCURS IN THE BACKGROUND.]_

_BIRCH  
_ _Oh gods. Oh gods, they’re here! Can anyone hear me? Is anyone out there?_

_[UNIDENTIFIED NOISE. BIRCH SCREAMS BUT IS ABRUPTLY CUT OFF BY STATIC. TRANSMISSION ENDS.]_

* * *

Polaris Institute. At one time, it was at the forefront of pokémon medical technology, a beacon of light for the future. For the past forty years, it had been responsible for everything from the full restore to the healing system used by every Nurse Joy from Kanto to Kalos. Young graduates of the top universities in Kanto and Johto dreamed of one day entering the fortress-like complex and joining the ranks of the most elite medical researchers across the world.

And then, the Fortree Meteor fell from the sky.

Two months after the meteor strike, reports of strange creatures emerged from the heart of Hoenn. Seas of red lights. Humanoid beings with powerful abilities. Some stories said that almost all of Fortree’s survivors were devoured by the creatures. Others said strange things happened to them, that they became zombies or alien monsters. The government, with assistance from the Pokémon Symposium, the foremost international organization of pokémon researchers on the planet, sent out a team of officials and scientists led by Professor Birch to uncover the truth to these reports, but after several days, Japanese intelligence and the Symposium simply lost contact with them. They weren’t the only ones to disappear, either. All along the routes between Mauville and Lilycove, trainers vanished one by one, and communications to the Safari Zone and Mt. Mortar ceased.

Finally, after half a month of disappearances and rumors, Hoenn descended into a full-blown panic. The government began evacuations as the military attempted to enter the mysterious black hole at the center of the region that they began to call Point Zero. Yet again, everyone who entered the dead area around Fortree came back gibbering stories about red seas and humanoid creatures—if they came back at all.

Meanwhile, the people of Hoenn couldn’t leave quicker. Over the course of those next few weeks, dozens of ferries packed with refugees cut through the Hoennian seas to the outlying islands and mainland Japan. But it only took one incident to end the rush. The S.S. Lucia, a small ferry traveling between Rustboro and Dewford, came to a standstill between mainland Hoenn and Dewford Island one bright, sunny morning. Over the course of three days, the passengers and crew were consumed with panic, and messages from the ship’s radio streamed to the naval ships surrounding the Lucia. All of the reports contained details of red seas and humanoid creatures.

And then, on the third day, the ship sank, and the military retrieved the trainer’s backpack that started it all. Inside, they found the parasite the Symposium eventually called the ixodida. That was when the quarantine on Hoenn fell. No one could move into or out of the region without proper clearance, which meant that hundreds of civilians were trapped within the regional borders.

Ten months after that, Polaris Institute was still a research institute, but it wasn’t just dedicated to researching full restores or medical equipment. It, alongside other institutions in each neighboring region, had been commandeered by the Japanese government for Project Stardust, a top-secret government operation dedicated to the research of the ixodida parasite. At the helm of Polaris, the government had placed one of the finest researchers they could persuade.

Presently—twelve months after the meteor fell and ten after the beginning of Project Stardust—this scientist sat in his office with his hands around his coffee cup. It had been a long ten months for him, and had his hair not already been completely snow-white, it surely would have been then from the stress. As it stood, he could feel the creases in his face deepen with each passing day, and his bones felt heavier and weaker. He thought he could do it; he thought he could handle the weight of what the government asked of him. But it had been twelve months since the meteor fell and ten since the parasite was brought into Polaris’s fortress-like complex, and all he had to show for it was that he had no idea what happened to the majority of Hoenn.

His name was Professor Samuel Oak. And he was tired.

On the other side of his desk, a woman sat with a file in her thin hands. She flicked her hazel eyes from line to line on the first page, but otherwise, she sat in cold, expressionless silence. After a long while, she finally spoke, breaking the cold hush of the office.

“Is this an error?”

Oak resisted his urge to react, either in a sigh or a grin. He knew she was going to ask about that—about one particular piece of information on the first page. The subject of the file was an unusual individual, to say the least, and not all of the Symposium scientists were open-minded.

“No, Professor Nettle,” he said. “Everything you see there is accurate.”

She looked up from the folder, peering at Oak over the top rim of her oval glasses. “According to this, he would be … nineteen?”

He nodded. “Yes. Made quite a commotion in the media when he was inducted into the Symposium.”

Straightening, she rested the folder on her lap and gave Oak a discerning glare. “Remember, Professor, that I have spent these past few years in the Baffin Region. We don’t get much news that far north. I’d heard of this young man, but I never bothered with trivial details such as his age. Nonetheless, seeing as he would be our new arrival, I have to ask a question in light of this information. Is he qualified?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t recommend him if I didn’t think he was.”

Professor Nettle peered down at the data on the first page of the file again. “Forgive me. Normally, I wouldn’t be so rude as to question your judgment, Professor, but I have my doubts about this candidate.” She lifted the file and adjusted her glasses. “His official credentials are quite impressive, I will say that. Degrees from Kanto and Johto’s elite universities. A doctorate in pokémon ethology by the age of fourteen. Employment with the Pokémon Cutting-Edge Technology Research Center andCeladon University. Never mind tutelage and a recommendation letter from you.” She pulled her glasses down the bridge of her nose and peered over the rim at Professor Oak.“However, you of all people know that degrees do not always serve as an adequate indicator for a researcher’s overall ability, and it takes years—perhaps even decades—for one to cultivate the level of experience needed to be a truly great scientist. What could he possibly bring to the team?”

Although Oak couldn’t argue with her reasoning, he also didn’t flinch from it, either. Instead, he shrugged and responded, “A new perspective.”

Nettle gave her superior another curious glance. “Professor Oak, forgive me, but how? My team consists of some of the top names in pokémon ethology and comparative psychology. All of my researchers have years of experience handling and understanding pokémon. Many of them were regional professors before your student was even born. What perspective could he possibly lend that seasoned researchers cannot achieve?”

He grinned. “Don’t be fooled by his age, Professor Nettle. It’s true that having credentials from top-notch institutions isn’t everything in our profession, but that’s exactly why you shouldn’t judge him so quickly. Even if he’s young, he’s capable of coming up with solutions to problems no one else would even dream of trying.”

“Even with as little information as we have to go on?”

“He’s worked with less. Take his theories on amaura herding behaviors.”

“Oh yes,” she said in an almost deadpan manner. “I’ve read that paper.”

Oak raised his eyebrows. “You have?”

“Of course.” Nettle frowned slightly. “You forget that ice-types are my specialty. As an expert in the matter, I found his paper to be questionable speculation. At best.”

“Ah, but he was right, wasn’t he? You’ve heard about the amaura footprints discovered in Utah, haven’t you?”

Nettle exhaled sharply through her nose and turned her head away. “Lucky speculation. The point is, Professor, that it has been ten months since we gathered here, and in those ten months, the topmost scientists in the region have made very little progress in understanding what the ixodida are, what they want, or what happened to Hoenn. In response, you’ve brought into this facility a nineteen-year-old who has, by comparison with anyone else at this facility, only recently become a researcher, and you’re telling me that I should rely on his speculations, many of which are the products of pure imagination?”

Oak’s smile faded slightly. “He’s observant, Professor Nettle. He has a knack for spotting things no one else would notice, and he’s here to spot whatever it is the rest of us, myself included, failed to pick up on.”

“And you believe he can actually do it?”

He shrugged. “Of course. I have a feeling we’re close to a breakthrough as it is. We just need someone to push us the rest of the way.”

At that, Nettle furrowed her eyebrows and shifted in her seat. “Are you saying that no one else but a nineteen-year-old can do that?”

Despite her apparent discomfort, Oak maintained his composure. He folded his hands in front of his coffee cup and stared steadily at his colleague. “No. I’m saying that no one but _him_ can do that. If it was any other circumstance, I’m sure we could rely on another researcher, but I know it’s his specific skill set that we need right now. So regardless of how old he is, we need him, Professor Nettle. It would be wise to judge him for what he can do, not what he is.”

The cold silence returned. For that brief moment, Oak regretted what he had said. It wasn’t like him to be so serious, and even he felt uncomfortable with how he phrased things. It was the job, though. The job got to him so very easily—or at least the thought of an entire region desperately relying on him.

Still, he didn’t care for the thought of defusing an argument. Professor Nettle wasn’t the most stubborn person he had ever worked with, but she certainly wasn’t the easiest.

That was why he was so surprised when he saw her sigh and relax.

“Very well, then,” she finally replied. “If you’re that convinced, then I’ll trust your judgment. I just hope he won’t interfere.”

Relief over how easily she took his comment washed over Oak, and he too relaxed at her words. “Oh, don’t worry. He won’t be a burden at all to you, I can tell you that. He takes his job very seriously.”

She smiled wryly. “I have no doubt. Shall I go prepare for his arrival, then?”

A broad smile crossed Oak’s face once more as he replied, “Yes! And let him know I’m sorry for not meeting him at the gate. In fact, be sure to welcome him to Polaris on my behalf!”

Standing, Nettle bowed her head and held the folder to her chest. As she turned to leave, she answered, “I’ll give him the most appropriate welcome Polaris Institute can offer, Professor.”

* * *

Less than an hour later, in the corridor of the innermost ring of Polaris Institute, a young man inhaled deeply, suppressing the urge to cough out the cold, sterile air of the hallway. His muscles tensed as the security officers on both sides of him stepped back. He felt exposed, standing in front of the singularly most intimidating woman he had ever met. Professor Nettle’s lips puckered slightly as she stared from the file in her hands to her subordinate. At once, he shivered but swallowed as much of his nervousness as he could in an attempt to force himself to look confident.

“Professor William Henry McKenzie,” she read. Then, peering over the rim of her glasses, she stared him down and coldly added, “Welcome to Polaris Institute.”

“You must be Professor Nettle,” he said, his voice lilting in a light, Johtonian accent. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

He extended his hand for her to shake, but this only prompted her to glare at it in length. Sensing that he might have made the wrong move for his first impression, the young man swung his hand back. It snaked around to his back, where he clasped it nervously in his other hand. All the while, his mouth shut without another word.

It felt to him like an eternity before Professor Nettle turned and began walking down the corridor. Her heels clacked like the legs of a crawdaunt across the smooth vinyl floor.

“You’ll do. Come with me,” she replied.

Seeing no other choice, her companion scrambled forward and fell into step beside Nettle.

“Have you been briefed?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“I’m sorry?”

She glared at him from the corner of her eye. “I need to know that you understand what we’re studying. Tell me what you know.”

He exhaled. “Pokémon 2000KH, known tentatively as ixodida. Its origin is technically unknown, but the current prevailing theory is that it’s connected to the meteor shower that occurred over Fortree City a year ago due to the timing and location of the ixodida sightings. Very little else is known about it except that it’s exclusively carnivorous and a highly aggressive predator at that. Reports of it have only been able to come from a handful of survivors and media outlets prior to the Hoenn quarantine. No one is even sure what it looks like because its aggression and speed practically guarantee that anyone who sees it has very little chance of surviving.”

As soon as he finished, there was a brief pause in their conversation.

“Is that it?” Nettle said after a few seconds.

“Yes, it is, I’m afraid.”

Nettle arched an eyebrow at his file again. “Dramatically delivered but nearly correct. It shows that you’ve read up on the ixodida, but it also shows how terribly in the dark you had been before your recruitment.” She opened the file once again. “According to your file, you work with the Pokémon Cutting-Edge Technology Research Center. Are you a corporate technological researcher, then?”

“Actually, I consider myself unaffiliated. You’ll notice that my more relevant work was sponsored by Celadon University.”

“But your reputation stems from your pokémon storage and retrieval system, yes?”

“I suppose it would.”

“Which was funded corporately.”

“I accept funding from whatever source I can find. It’s really the research that I focus on, not who my investors are.”

Nettle narrowed her eyes. “I see.”

The other researcher stopped in the hallway and waited for Nettle to turn to him.

“If I may,” he said. “I’d like to say I’m looking forward to working on your team, Professor Nettle. I’ve read your papers on jynx communication, and I thought your theory of the Rosetta String was particularly enlightening. I’ve found your method of decoding a pokemon’s call more than useful in my own work.”

She eyed him skeptically. What she said to Professor Oak was true. The Canadian media didn’t care much about a Japanese researcher, but even then, she had seen his picture and read his work. And frankly, he was more or less a surprise to her if only because, reading his papers, she imagined that he would be far older. Even looking at him right then, he seemed slightly older than the age given in his file, what with the determined glint in his dark eyes, the proud smile crossing his heart-shaped face, and the way he stood with his back straight and his broad hands shoved casually into his lab coat pockets. There was something about him, something about the way he carried himself that made him seem full of enthusiasm and energy. Or, more accurately, something about the way he carried himself that, to Professor Nettle, made him seem full of the cockiness of an overly ambitious graduate student.

Nettle couldn’t help but think it was entirely because he hadn’t become bitter and cynical thanks to the research community yet. He probably never had to fight for months for a scrap of funding, and given his reputation and how much Professor Oak praised him, she knew he probably never would. In that sense, she almost admired him.

Still, there was something about his last statement that didn’t sit well with her.

“I published that paper in 1979,” she said dryly.

“Yes,” he replied. “Celadon University has a copy on file. I read it for my senior thesis.”

“Your senior thesis? Would you have written that in 1993, then?”

“Yes.”

“You were born two years after I published that paper, and you read it for your senior thesis when you were twelve.”

“Eleven. I turned twelve later that year.”

Nettle turned and continued walking. The last thing she needed was to feel as old as he made her feel, but she didn’t dare voice that. They were professionals, after all, regardless of her own vanity and his … flamboyant nature. Instead, she focused on leading him directly to a single nondescript door along the hallway.

“This,” she said as she gripped the knob, “is laboratory D. Consider it our base of operations. While we will be using larger facilities to observe the ixodida, this is where we analyze our data and compile our findings.”

As Nettle swiped her ID badge on the lock next to the door, her companion reeled back and allowed his eyes to widen slightly.

“Observe the ixodida?” he asked. “Do you mean to say we actually have a specimen?”

“Yes.”

“But no one has been able to approach an ixodida and make it back alive!”

Nettle smirked. “As far as the public is concerned, yes. There is a lot about the situation in Hoenn no one has told you, Professor McKenzie. Welcome to government work.” She opened the door roughly. “By the way. I found your father’s paper on pokémon genetics in relation to special abilities particularly enlightening. I read it the year it was published. I was fourteen at the time.”

As she walked through the door, she didn’t bother to look back. If she had, she might have enjoyed the uncomfortable look on her companion’s face.

* * *

Elsewhere in the complex, a young blonde woman inhaled deeply and scrunched her dainty nose. She crossed her long legs as she sat on a desk next to a laptop computer. On the latter’s screen, a window was open, and within that window was the shot of a figure sitting in shadow. At the blonde’s feet, meanwhile, knelt three tall men in the same red scrubs she was wearing—scrubs that identified all of them as research assistants according to the institute’s hierarchy of staff.

“Polaris Institute. I hate this place. It reminds me of your laboratories,” the blonde grumbled.

“You’re not there to enjoy yourself,” the figure responded curtly. “Have you contacted our chief agent?”

The blonde narrowed her purple eyes and rested her pointed chin on a hand. Her other hand reached out as one of the three men produced a manila envelope.

“I did. She says she’s selected a suitable target for us,” she told the figure. “She didn’t tell me much else besides that.”

“Then you have your orders.”

The assistant opened the envelope and slid its contents into her hand. She stared at the stack of papers carefully as her look of boredom dissolved into a cold glare.

“He’ll do,” she said. “We’ll have him gift-wrapped for you in less than five hours.”

“The process will take up to two weeks. You’re to watch over him and transport him only after it has completed.”

His subordinate started. “Wouldn’t it be easier to transport him immediately and let the process happen in one of our own laboratories?”

“It could be a liability to us,” the man replied. “Besides, perhaps the process will coax more information from our friends on the Committee.”

“So you’re willing to risk our lives to blackmail a government body and capture one monster,” the agent said.

The figure grinned. “I have no doubt you’ll hold your own against him, 009. Send your next report after the completion of phase two. Understood?”

At his response, the blonde sighed. Part of her wanted to say something about the implication that she was dispensable, but she knew the response already. Instead, her hands gripped the edge of the desk, and she silently reminded herself why she had to be so obedient this time. Failing again wasn’t an option.

“Understood, sir,” she finally replied.

Her finger tapped a key to end the call. As the window vanished, she transferred her gaze back to the papers in her lap. Her eyes narrowed once again as she stared hard at the name and photo her contact had given her.

“Anderson,” she muttered. Then, she flashed the photo at her grunts. “Listen up. Our target is an assistant, J. Anderson. Tallish. Dark green hair. Dark eyes. You’ll find him with the behaviorists in Laboratory D at this hour. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am!” all three of them barked in unison.

“Good.”

She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them again. Slowly. Sensually. Rubbing the calf of one against the thigh of the other in just the way she hoped would get them wrapped around her finger for more reasons than because they knew she could kill them using one of thirty-six different methods.

“Now go fetch,” she drawled.

They were out the door in seconds.

* * *

Laboratory D, as it turned out, was more or less a closet of computers. Cubicles lined one side of the room while a bank of machinery lined the other, leading straight back to a blank, white wall. At each station was a scientist and an assistant, poring over print-outs or watching flickering computer screens. The buzz of their whispered conversations came at intermittent bursts over the hum of their equipment before dying down into cold, long silences.

It wasn’t exactly what Professor McKenzie considered an ideal work environment, in other words.

However, this was the place that he was supposed to call home for the foreseeable future according to Professor Nettle. That was shortly before she introduced him to an awkward-looking assistant with slicked-back, dark-green hair. The assistant in question fidgeted and clenched his square jaw as he approached, and there was a sheen on his pale skin from sweat as he stood in front of the two researchers. His large, dark eyes stared at Professor McKenzie from behind a pair of oversized glasses, and the expression in them was one of awe—the kind of awe that looked to McKenzie as if the young man had seen a shiny rapidash. Given how nervous he looked, McKenzie almost felt sorry for him.

“McKenzie,” Nettle drawled, emphasizing the lack of a title, “meet Joel Anderson, your assistant.”

“It’s such an honor to meet you, Professor McKenzie!” Joel exclaimed as he eagerly extended a hand.

“Bill. It’s … it’s just Bill.” He reached out and let Joel shake his hand vigorously as he sent an uneasy look towards Nettle. “I wasn’t expecting an assistant.”

“You’re working on a team, not solo,” she answered blandly. “If you’d like, think of him as a shared resource. So if you don’t require Mr. Anderson’s help, you are perfectly welcome to allow your teammates to use him instead.”

Bill raised his eyebrows and pulled his hand away from a content Joel who smiled tightly at Nettle’s comment. Although Bill had plenty of opinions about that kind of arrangement, he still held his tongue, opting instead to shift his glance from a content Joel to the expressionless Nettle.

“If you have no further questions, then as team leader, I am required to report to the director after every successful arrival and briefing.” Nettle nodded to both the scientist and his new assistant. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“The director?” Bill’s uneasy glance softened into a grin. “Professor Oak, right? I received a personal invitation from him. Tell him I said thank y—”

“Professor Oak is an incredibly busy figure here at Polaris,” Nettle interrupted. “I’ll mention that you’ve arrived safely.”

On the last syllable, she turned on her heel and stalked off, straight through the lab door and out of sight. As soon as she was gone, Bill sighed and moved towards the cubicles.

“She’s not always like that, is she?” he asked.

“Like what?” Joel cheerily responded.

Bill cast a brief look his way before sitting down at an unused computer. Raising his chin slightly, Joel darted forward and wrung his hands.

“Uh, is there anything I can do for you right now, Professor?”

Shifting in his seat, Bill let his fingers drift to the mouse. The screen flashed to life, displaying a plain black login screen with Polaris’s four-pointed star logo floating above standard username and password input boxes. Bill ignored both of these and quickly tapped a few keys on the keyboard. In an instant, the login screen vanished, replaced by a full-screen command prompt. Both of Bill’s hands found the keyboard this time, and in a flash, he keyed in line after line of commands, his eyes darting from one result to another.

“Er, Professor?” Joel murmured.

“Bill. Not ‘Professor.’”

“Right, uh. Professor Nettle should have given you login information.”

Bill shrugged. “It must have slipped her mind. Besides, I find that the backdoor always provides a little more information. Professor Nettle said that there was an ixodida specimen on the premises. Is that true?”

“Absolutely, sir!”

“You realize you can be casual with me, yes?”

“As casual as you want me to be, Professor.”

Once again, Bill shot his assistant a look. “I … never mind.” He turned back to the computer and resumed typing. “Where in Polaris is the specimen located?”

“They’re located in Laboratory F, sir. Just five minutes’ walk from here.”

“They?” Bill furrowed his eyebrows. “There are more than one of them?”

“Yes. We accidentally bred them a few months ago. You’ll find the footage in our media library under video file ET650F, which you should have access to if—”

Bill keyed in a few more commands, and as soon as he was finished, a barren desktop flashed onto the screen. In the center of it was a single video window flashing a loading status bar.

“—if you were logged in under a scientist-class account,” Joel finished in a mumble.

Ignoring him, Bill watched as the status bar vanished. In its place was a grainy, black-and-white image of a large, concrete room with only two objects inside it: a pair of Plexiglas boxes. Inside one, a rattata darted in tight circles, occasionally pawing at the walls of her cage. The other, meanwhile, contained what looked like a speck of light in the furthest corner away from the rattata. Leaning in, Bill fiddled with the sound as he sat transfixed, waiting for something—anything—to happen, but for the first thirty seconds, everything was still.

Then, a light flashed offscreen, and one side on both of the boxes slid upwards. The rattata stopped and sat on her haunches as her stubby whiskers twitched. Slowly, she dropped to all fours and crawled out of the box, her whiskers twitching wildly with each step. As soon as she emerged fully from her cage, she stopped where she was, and her fur stood on end. Her body swept low, paws spread and whiskers pointed straight back. The camera was pointed away from her, straight at her back, but Bill knew that if her face had been visible, he would see her teeth bared in a menacing growl.

For a long while, the image stayed like that, with the rattata poised in front of her box and the small dot of light pulsing in the corner of its own. Then, in a split second, the light vanished and reappeared on the face of the rattata. There was no sound, but Bill could practically hear the mouse’s screams as she jerked back and stumbled into her box. Through the Plexiglas, Bill could see the rattata’s skin split—neatly, as if a zipper that had been hidden in her nose was now being pulled back slowly across her skull, her neck, and her back. He could see the glistening of her spine, the dull gray of her muscles, the stark white of her skull. Yet he saw no blood. Not yet.

The split stopped just beyond her shoulders, and the flash of light disappeared under her skin. She convulsed, slamming her sides and her head into the smooth surfaces of the box.

Until, that is, Bill’s entire view was obscured by the wet blackness that suddenly burst from the tiny, writhing body within the box. The tape ran for a few more seconds until the rattata’s tail fell limply just beyond the box’s opening. From within its curl, the speck of light emerged and darted across the floor back to its own box, leaving behind a thin, black trail across the cement.

At that point, the video ended, and the window blanked. Bill sat back, his hand on the mouse and his head tilted slightly. He was acutely aware of Joel next to him, hunched over the desk and breathing heavily. Exhaling, Bill closed his eyes.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Huh? Oh, me?” Joel forced a grin. “Y-yeah! It’s just …”

Bill opened one eye. “Your first time watching one pokémon hunt another, I take it.”

Joel shot up, his arms stiffly held at his sides. “What?! N-no! Of course not! I mean, I didn’t become a research assistant not knowing how pokémon hunt, if that’s what you’re implying, but—”

“It’s quite all right. Everyone is shocked when they see it for the first time.” Bill struck a few more keys to summon the black command prompt again. “We’re so used to pokémon battles, and those aren’t meant to be lethal. It’s easy to forget that some pokémon are actually born hunters.”

At those words, Joel’s shaking calmed a little, and he leaned over his superior a little. “Did you ... ?”

“Raticate. That was my first. They eat smaller pokémon when they’re desperate for food. Some might even eat stray snubbull if the snubbull is small enough.”

“Oh.” Joel crossed his arms. “Uh … Professor McKenzie?”

“Bill.”

“Uh, right. Can I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you always, uh, this okay with this kind of thing?”

“Are the others?”

Joel shrugged. “Some were shocked, I guess. Others were surprised that it was so fast and clean. You know. Up to the part where it exploded.”

“She. Female rattata have shorter whiskers.” Bill rubbed his forehead. “To answer your question, I’m not very fond of watching it, no. This will be quite a challenge.” He removed his hand and paused. “You said there were more ixodida?”

“Yeah. After the first one killed that rattata, it laid eggs in its—her, sorry—body. We got them to hatch, and they’re all located in Laboratory F.”

Bill continued to type. “Is that so? The ixodida fertilized its own eggs? Interesting.”

Joel nodded. “Ixodida are hermaphroditic. Professors Fig and Apple have determined that if it’s pressed enough, it’ll lay eggs and fertilize them itself, but it prefers finding a mate.”

“I see.”

With one last command, the screen blanked completely before fading back into the login screen. Bill pushed his chair back, standing up gingerly as he stared at Polaris’s logo.

“Joel, allow me to answer a question you asked a few minutes ago,” he said. “Yes, you can do something for me. I need you to show me to Laboratory F.”

“Laboratory F?!” Joel exclaimed. “Why do you want to go there?!”

“To see the ixodida of course. I’d like to meet this pokémon before I study it.”

“You’d like to meet it?!”

Bill flashed him a smile. “Yes. Sometimes, I can get along without meeting a pokémon before I study it, but I think in this case, I’ll need to see it for myself first.”

Joel fidgeted. “I … I’m not sure I can help you with that. You need to have special temporary access to get into Laboratory F. And that’s only granted by a team leader. Professor Nettle, in other words.”

“That’s one way to get permission,” Bill responded as he held up his ID badge. “The other, of course, is to give yourself access.”

“Is that what you were doing just now?!” Joel exclaimed.

Bill flinched and quickly covered Joel’s mouth with a hand. He stood on tiptoe to peer over the walls of the cubicle, only to find that his fellow researchers and assistants were hard at work and completely oblivious to Joel’s outburst. Relaxing, Bill let his hand drop to his side as he lowered himself down.

“Careful now. You don’t want to draw unwanted attention to us,” he said.

“Yeah, but … you hacked Polaris’s system?” Joel hissed. “Why would you do that instead of asking Professor Nettle?”

“I must admit, I would have waited for her permission, but I have a distinct feeling that would have been unattainable. Well, that and security confiscated my remote login utility at the first checkpoint,” Bill replied calmly before walking out of the cubicle. “Anyway, shall we? All I need is a peek to get started.”

Joel followed, although he continued to fidget and remained several steps behind Bill. As he cast a glance around at the other scientists and assistants, he muttered, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Shouldn’t we tell someone first?”

Grasping the door handle, Bill flashed one last grin at Joel.

“Come now,” he said. “Polaris Institute is a fortress, its security systems are state-of-the-art, and I would be dreadfully surprised if it didn’t have an exceptionally built storage facility for the ixodida. What’s the worst that could happen?”

With those words, Bill led Joel into the hallway, and once the assistant pointed his superior in the right direction, the two began the trek towards Laboratory F.

They got no further than Laboratory E before three massive assistants approached them from behind and grabbed them.


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill's life starts on a rapid slope down the rabbit hole.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 6_  
CLEARANCE ACCEPTED.  
DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT  
DESIGNATION: THE PANDORA TAPES, FILE 02  
DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPTION OF VIDEO OBTAINED FROM VALENCIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE ON VALENCIA ISLAND, ORANGE ARCHIPELAGO. TAPE FEATURES INTERVIEW BETWEEN PROFESSOR PHILENA IVY AND SPECIMEN 2000LH-B/01, CODENAME PANDORA.  
DATE-TIME: 04/09/01, 16:54

_[PANDORA LIES ON A COT IN V.R.I.’S STANDARD OBSERVATION ROOM. PRESENT STATUS OF SPECIMEN IS IDENTIFIED AS BEING “STAGE II.” SKIN HAS TURNED PALE, HAIR LOSS IS BEGINNING TO OCCUR, AND CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURES HAVE GROWN ON SUBJECT’S SHOULDERS AND ARMS. OTHER FEATURES APPARENTLY COMMON TO 2000LH-B HAVE YET TO OCCUR.]_

_IVY  
[REDACTED], I know it’s hard for you right now, but I need to ask you a few questions that will help us figure out what’s going on. Do you think you can answer them for me?_

_[PANDORA NODS.]_

_IVY  
Good. How are you feeling?_

_PANDORA [NEARLY INAUDIBLE]  
I’m so cold, Professor. It’s so cold._

_IVY  
It’s your skin. You’re starting to develop the traits of an ice-type._

_PANDORA  
An ice-type? [PAUSE—PANDORA BEGINS TO CRY] Is it going to stop?_

_IVY  
We-we don’t know yet. Can you feel anything other than cold? How is the bite?_

_PANDORA  
It hurts too, Professor._

_IVY  
I’m sorry, [REDACTED]. We’re going to try to fix this. I promise._

_PANDORA  
Professor … she spoke to me last night._

_IVY  
What?_

_PANDORA  
That … that thing spoke to me last night. On my ankle._

_IVY [ALARMED]  
What do you mean ‘spoke to you’? What did it say?_

_[PANDORA SCREAMS AND CONVULSES ON THE COT. IVY REACHES TO GRASP HER ARM.]_

_IVY  
[REDACTED]? [REDACTED]! It’s okay! I’m here! [LOOKS OVER HER SHOULDER] Get the med-kit! Now!_

_PANDORA  
Professor!_

_[IVY TURNS BACK TO PANDORA AND LEANS OVER HER.]_

_IVY  
Yes. Yes, I’m here. It’s going to be okay._

_PANDORA [PANTING]  
Professor. Professor, she said … she said …_

_IVY  
Yes? What did she say?_

_[PANDORA CALMS. SUBJECT LOOKS DIRECTLY AT THE CAMERA.]_

_PANDORA  
Let us be._

_[PANDORA CLAWS IVY’S FACE. IVY SCREAMS, TWISTS IN HER CHAIR, AND ATTEMPTS TO STAND. FIVE ASSISTANTS RUN INTO THE SHOT AND OBSCURE PANDORA AND IVY EXCEPT FOR IVY’S FACE. IVY’S HANDS COVER HER EYES, AND BLOOD RUNS ALONG THE LEFT SIDE OF HER JAWLINE. TWO ASSISTANTS GRASP IVY’S ELBOWS AND LEAD HER AWAY, AND THE REMAINING THREE ASSISTANTS STAND BESIDE PANDORA’S COT. TWO HOLD HER DOWN WHILE THE THIRD WORKS A NEEDLE INTO HER LEFT ARM. PANDORA SCREAMS. AN UNIDENTIFIABLE APPENDAGE RISES FROM HER LEFT SIDE AND SLASHES AT THE NECK OF THE LAST MENTIONED ASSISTANT._

_VIDEO RECORDING CEASES. END FILE 02.]_

* * *

 In the ensuing minutes, Bill took careful inventory of the situation.

One, he and a young man he had known for less than a half an hour—an assistant he was apparently responsible for—were being nearly literally dragged through the otherwise empty hallway of Polaris Institute by three strangers.

Two, the strangers in question were built unlike any lab assistant Bill had ever encountered. The shortest was, according to Bill’s rough estimate, six feet tall with a shoulder span of three or four feet. Normally, Bill wasn’t the kind of person to analyze a person’s measurements, but that was the one clamping a large, beefy hand over his mouth. He couldn’t help but notice that the man was a bit larger than the average lab assistant as a result.

Which led to the third point: that all three assistants had frames that massive because most of their bodies seemed to consist of pure muscle. He didn’t actually come to that conclusion by looking at his captors; it actually came to him by the feeling of the short one’s palm against his face. Each finger tensed around his jaw and held his chin up, and his neck throbbed with an ache at its back. Judging by the grip, Bill knew that it was a threat. One wrong move from him, and the man would most likely twist his head clean off his shoulders in one easy gesture.

Because of that, Bill remained silent. Joel, much to Bill’s dismay, wasn’t quite as cautious, opting instead to thrash and scream against the hands of the other two strangers. Every so often, Bill glanced at him from the corner of his eye as he struggled to come up with a plan, but no matter how much he knew he needed to get Joel out of this, nothing came to mind. Any plan that nearly surfaced in his brain ultimately ended with the both of them beaten on the floor at best. After all, while Bill couldn’t speak for Joel, he could tell by the assistant’s panicking nature and shaking limbs that Joel was by no means a fighter. Bill himself wasn’t much of one either; he never really considered the possibility of training himself past a few self-defense lessons in college and the occasional kung fu movie. Besides that, he had no weapons or pokémon on him. Even if he had brought his own, they would have been confiscated by security at the first checkpoint according to the institute’s safety policies.

In short, they were screwed, and Bill knew it.

The seconds felt like hours to Bill as he let himself be led along the hallway. Besides Joel’s screaming, the group was silent—almost eerily so to Bill. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes now and then as he went over his mental inventory over and over again. His brain struggled to grasp a possible weak moment, a possible opening that either of them could take advantage of. Someone was depending on him, after all. Joel needed him to come up with something. Anything.

Instead, what he got was an abrupt stop. Opening his eyes, he realized that his captors stood them in front of a metal door with a nondescript black box attached to the wall beside it. The door looked just like every other in the complex, but this one was painted with a single letter in bright, fresh white—a single letter that made Bill’s heart freeze.

F.

They were at the door of the ixodida holding cell.

“Oh-nine gave us clearance, right?” the largest of the men asked gruffly.

Bill could hear the rustle of fabric just behind him. Then, his captor’s free hand rose to the black box with a plastic card in its fingers—a plastic card Bill instantly recognized as an ID badge.

“Of course she did, moron,” the captor’s gruff voice responded.

The man tapped the card to the black box, and it beeped in response. He pulled Bill aside, keeping his hand clamped tightly on the researcher’s mouth as he leaned towards the box. It slid open in the meantime, revealing the glint of a lens just under its thick, plastic lid. The assistant positioned his face in front of the lens and stared deep into the blinking, red light beyond it. The device flashed a beam down the man’s eye before slowly drawing its plastic lid back into place.

In the next second, the door clicked, and when his captor threw it open, Bill knew he and Joel were completely and utterly screwed. The hands released him briefly, and in that second, he tried to move out of his captor’s reach. Before he could, two of the strangers snatched both of his arms and threw him into the room. Literally.

He crashed down on hard vinyl, and pain jarred his body. Groaning, he pushed himself to his hands and knees, only to flinch when he heard the door shut and lock. But just as he braced himself for any kind of attack, Bill realized his captors had instead opted to stand just behind him, leaving him untouched on the floor. When he lifted his head to take a look at who else was in the laboratory with them, he suddenly knew why.

There were ten people besides the three captors occupying the room. All of them were lab assistants, from the looks of their red scrubs, and all of them had their eyes fixed steadily on Bill. But there was one at the front, a petite, blonde assistant with sharp, purple eyes, who glared the hardest at him.

“You’re late.” She paused, and her purple eyes narrowed. “Those are _two._ ”

Behind Bill, Joel squeaked.

“S-sorry, 009,” Bill’s former captor stammered. “We couldn’t decide which one was Anderson.”

Anderson. They were specifically looking for Joel. Bill looked over his shoulder with his mouth slightly open. Joel stood trembling, his eyes flitting desperately from Bill to 009 and back. They were specifically looking for Joel, and Bill led him right to them.

Abruptly, a set of long fingers ensnared Bill’s hair, and sharp nails dug into his scalp. He bit back yet another shout as the hand yanked his head until he stared deep into narrow purple eyes.

“This is a _professor_ ,” she hissed. Shoving Bill’s head away from her, 009 put her hands on her hips and glared once more at her subordinates. “You were ordered to capture an _assistant_. How could you possibly mistake him for one?”

“Well,” the shortest of the captors replied, “I-I mean, we just sort of grabbed ‘em both as soon as we saw ‘em, so we really didn’t look—”

“Who is he?”

“We, uh, hadn’t searched him yet, but—”

“I don’t care. Give me his ID.”

Bill felt a hand grab his arm. He didn’t look at the grunt who grabbed him. Instead, he tried to yank his arm away while keeping his eyes on Joel. Bill knew this was a desperate situation, and even he had to admit he wasn’t the bravest person in existence. Yet he also knew he would be responsible for whatever they did to Joel, so he needed to do something. Anything.

“Let me save you time,” he said quietly as he turned his head back towards the blonde. “Bill McKenzie. I’ve been assigned to the ethology team.”

“Clearly, considering Anderson is with—” 009 stopped and glanced to the side. “Hold on. Bill McKenzie? Don’t tell me you’re the creator of the storage system.”

The hand let him go, and Bill could feel the grunt shifting away from him. It took effort on Bill’s part not to smirk at the possible opening.

“Co-creator with Lanette Chastain, yes,” he answered.

009 sighed. “Giovanni is going to love this.”

At that, Bill smiled. It was definitely an opening. “I’m sure we can negotiate something here. I don’t know what it is you want, but if you let Mr. Anderson go, I can arrange something.”

And then, 009 smiled, and Bill felt his skin crawl. The problem was that 009’s smile made her look young, like a girl no older than fourteen. But there was something in the way her lips curled, in the way she squinted her purple eyes, in the way she showed just a little too much of her teeth that made Bill think of arbok slowly circling a rattata. There was venom in that expression, but it came slathered with sugar.

“Oh no,” she answered sweetly. “We can’t touch you. Strict orders from years and years ago. Like, longer than even I’ve been around!”

A cold feeling crawled its way out of Bill’s core and began creeping across his body. His smile faded, and he could almost see what little opening he had snap shut.

“And who is ‘we’?” he asked, this time nearly inaudible.

“Team Rocket, of course!” 009 exclaimed.

Bill felt as if the floor dropped out beneath him. He had heard of Team Rocket—briefly, largely through police reports. Who in Kanto hadn’t? But he never imagined kneeling there, right in front of an entire group of them.

And these, he realized, were people who wanted Joel specifically.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two of the burly agents who brought him to that room pull Joel to the side. One of them finally removed his hand from Joel’s mouth, prompting the assistant to scream and thrash.

“Let me go!” he shouted. “Let me go! Professor McKenzie, help!”

Bill flashed another glance towards him before turning his eyes back to 009. With some effort, he struggled to stand, only to have two Rocket agents shoot forward and grab his arms again.

“What … what are you going to do with him?” he asked. “What do you want from him?!”

009 flicked her wrist, and a black tulip slid free from her sleeve. Turning her head slightly, she hid her smile behind the blossom and shifted her eyes to her side. Two more agents to her left nodded and turned to the wall behind them, to the expansive window that took up one side of the room. His eyes rose to look at the glass, at the red window with soft, red lights fading into and out of view. Halfway between the floor and the ceiling was a metal square with a circular latch on its face. One of the agents twisted the latch, sending bubbles up the tank. The agent twisted the latch one more time and pulled it free, drawing a long Plexiglas tube into the open. Inside its clear walls was a single red light darting around a sea of red.

“Bill,” 009 said. “Do you mind if I call you Bill?”

He didn’t answer. After a few seconds, 009 strode forward to stand in front of him, turning to watch her subordinates force Joel to the ground and carry the tube to him.

“So you know what happens to humans when an ixodida bites them, right?” she asked.

Bill shook his head. He watched helplessly as agents yanked Joel’s shirt up to his shoulders and pressed one end of the tube against his bare chest. Joel’s screams rose to an incoherent screech.

“Really? That’s funny. Wouldn’t they have told you during your briefing?” 009 snickered. “Oh wait. That’s us. Because we stole information from people higher than you. Weird what they think you should and shouldn’t know, right? I mean, this is a pretty important point.”

“What is?” Bill murmured, although he only half-wanted to know.

She didn’t respond this time. Not verbally. Physically, she stepped back and motioned with her free hand—as if she was a stage performer motioning to the next act—at Joel. She didn’t need to, however. Bill’s eyes were already fixed on his assistant as the agent holding the tube twisted the handle once more. Red liquid poured from the bottom of the tube, ran over Joel’s skin, and pooled beneath his body while the blinking light drifted down the emptying cylinder. Eventually, it vanished, and Joel’s screams died down to a panting whimper for the next few seconds.

And then, he screamed once more. Horribly.

Bill flinched before watching the agents shift to holding Joel’s arms and legs to the ground. Lifting his chin, Bill eyed Joel before stopping dead where he was. On the assistant’s chest, a glittering, red bead flashed with a steady pulse. It was half-buried in Joel’s skin, but Bill could tell exactly what it was just with that glance. One of the ixodida specimens.

With a violent twist, Bill tried to wrench his arms away from the agents, but they held tighter with each move he made. Eventually, they twisted his arms enough to force him to stay still, gasping for breath in their grip as his eyes fell on Joel again.

That was when he noticed that the creature hadn’t moved from its spot. It wasn’t lacerating Joel. It wasn’t cutting him open or burrowing into his body. All he could see were sinewy, vein-like lumps slithering beneath his skin from where the ixodida sat. Joel shuddered and spasmed through each moment that the pokémon laced its net across his body.

Right then, it finally dawned on Bill what 009 meant.

“Blazes,” Bill breathed. “It’s a parasite!”

009 turned her smile on him again. “Wow, they weren’t kidding about how smart you are!” Then, her voice dropped its sickeningly sweet quality. “To humans, yes. It’s a parasite. It’s a nasty one too. I’d show you what it does by letting you watch Anderson, but I don’t think you work that way, do you?”

One of the agents by Joel rose and took the cylinder back to the wall. The clammy feeling of dread that sat in Bill’s stomach grew just a little more as he watched her replace the device and turn the latch once.

“What-what are you talking about?” he asked.

“Oh, you know,” 009 responded in a sing-song voice. “You wear costumes to understand pokémon, don’t you?”

The agent at the wall turned the latch twice. Bill shifted his feet backwards but knew he couldn’t break free to run.

“Everyone knows about that technique. The Symposium can’t stop talking about it. They think it’s funny.” 009 tapped the tulip to her chin. “But me? I don’t know. I think it’s a really neat idea!”

Slowly, the agent at the wall drew the cylinder free from its holder. Another flashing light floated inside, but this one, Bill swore, looked more aggressive. More eager to escape. It darted to the bottom of the cylinder, almost as if it was waiting.

“See, the problem is we can’t guarantee that you won’t talk,” 009 explained in mock sadness. “You’re really close to Professor Oak, and you’re the kind of person with a strong moral fiber. Or so they say, anyway.”

The hands holding him forced him to the ground, and the remaining agents swarmed him to pin his limbs down. He thrashed once beneath their grip, but they held him steady while 009 stepped over him. She sat on his stomach, toying with the tulip until her fingertips held its stem like a pen. For the first time, Bill noticed that the end was sharpened and metallic like a knife. It felt like a knife too when 009 slashed it down his shirt to cut off every button with the deftness of a surgeon. A hand clamped over his mouth as he lifted his head and watched her part the fabric to reveal his pale skin beneath it. Almost seductively, she ran her fingers along the shallow cut down his front that the tulip’s stem left behind.

“Shame we have to do this to you,” 009 said as she reached up for the tube. “You would’ve been a useful asset to Team Rocket. But who knows? Maybe you’ll survive with your sanity intact, and we’ll be able to use you afterwards. You just won’t be as cute, but that’s okay. I prefer my men to be older and more assertive anyway.”

She pressed the end of the tube against his chest and twisted the handle. Bill shivered at the sting of the ice-cold fluid gushing out around the opening of the tube. He stiffened, bracing himself as if he could will his skin into becoming a steel barrier to block the parasite. It didn’t work so well for his nerves as he felt the pinpricks of the creature’s legs crawling across his flesh before stopping directly over his heart.

And then all he felt was hot, blinding pain.

It was as if someone took a thousand red-hot needles and stabbed him in the chest all at once. He was sure he screamed because he felt his throat strain and scratch as if his muscles were tearing. He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything. Nothing in his brain registered except pure pain.

But at the last second, just before he slipped into darkness, the pain receded, creeping back to the throbbing ache over his heart. He relaxed, falling back to the floor. The hands slipped away from him and left him to breathe shallowly as he lay on his back. His world moved in slow motion, with the Team Rocket agents bustling around him in slow-moving blurs and red lights fading in and out above him. He was dimly aware of 009 turning back to him, her mouth moving while her voice resonated, sounding as if it wasn’t from her at all but instead from a million miles away from them, in a sweet, soothing coo.

“Don’t worry. The rest won’t hurt. To you.”

The fingers of one of her hands ran along the vein-like net radiating from the parasite while her other hand brushed the petals of her tulip against Bill’s nose. She squeezed the stem, and a blue powder flooded Bill’s vision.

And then, he slipped into a deep, painless sleep.


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one has a good day. Especially Bill. Who just died.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 6_  
CLEARANCE ACCEPTED.  
DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT  
DESIGNATION: THE PANDORA TAPES, FILE 02  
DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPTION OF VIDEO OBTAINED FROM VALENCIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE ON VALENCIA ISLAND, ORANGE ARCHIPELAGO. TAPE FEATURES INTERVIEW BETWEEN PROFESSOR PHILENA IVY AND SPECIMEN 2000LH-B/01, CODENAME PANDORA.  
DATE-TIME: 23/09/01, 13:21

_[PANDORA LIES ON A COT IN V.R.I.’S STANDARD OBSERVATION ROOM. PRESENT STATUS OF SPECIMEN IS IDENTIFIED AS BEING “STAGE VI.” SUBJECT NO LONGER IDENTIFIABLE AS HUMAN.]_

_IVY  
Hello, [REDACTED]. How are you feeling today?_

_PANDORA [MONOTONE]  
Cold._

_IVY  
I see. [LOOKS AT HER CLIPBOARD] Pandora, I’d like to ask you the standard questions. Are you feeling well enough to answer them?_

_PANDORA  
Yes._

_IVY  
Very good. First question. Are you in pain?_

_PANDORA  
No._

_IVY  
Good. Good. Now, you mentioned in one of our last sessions that the parasite spoke to you. Did it speak to you again?_

_[SILENCE.]_

_IVY  
Pandora?_

_PANDORA  
[INAUDIBLE]_

_IVY  
What was that?_

_PANDORA  
Come closer._

_[IVY HESITATES BUT THEN LEANS TOWARDS PANDORA.]_

_PANDORA  
[UNIDENTIFIABLE LANGUAGE]_

_[PANDORA OPENS HER MOUTH AND EXHALES A GUST OF WIND. IVY SCREAMS AND REELS BACK. ICE FORMS ON HER SKIN. SIGNS OF FROSTBITE DEVELOP ON HER HANDS. SHE FALLS TO THE FLOOR AND REMAINS THERE; HER SCREAM CUTS OFF SHORTLY BEFORE IMPACT. THREE ASSISTANTS RUN INTO THE SHOT AND ATTEMPT TO RESTRAIN AND SEDATE PANDORA. HER BODY EMITS A FLASH OF LIGHT, OBSCURING THE CAMERA FOR THE NEXT SIXTEEN (16) SECONDS._

_AT MARK 4:32, THE LIGHT FADES, AND PANDORA IS SEEN STANDING VERY CLOSE TO THE CAMERA. ONE OF THE ASSISTANTS CAN BE SEEN OVER HER SHOULDER. HE IS FROZEN IN WHAT IS APPARENTLY A FULL-BODY BLOCK OF ICE.]_

_PANDORA  
Hello._

_[PANDORA EMITS A SECOND FLASH OF LIGHT. AUDIO AND VISUAL ARE LOST AT THIS POINT._

_END FILE 06.]_

* * *

 Professor Samuel Oak was not having a good day.

Or, rather, he had not been having a good week in general. Not since one of his most reliable research assistants and the researcher he had vouched for so heavily were found in Laboratory F with ixodida parasites attached to them. Now, after days of paperwork and phone calls to the organization overseeing the project, he sat watching the videos they sent to him in response.

At the very least, he no longer had any questions as to what happened to Professor Ivy or the research institute that had seemingly disappeared off the network less than a month ago. Unfortunately, that came with a whole host of other questions that surfaced in his mind and refused to dissipate. But the email that contained the six video files offered no other information from his superiors, the mysterious panel he knew as the Committee. They had nothing to say other than the statement that, as the recently appointed director of Polaris Institute, he was responsible for anything that occurred within its complex. However, they strongly advised him to prepare.

Heaving a sigh, he leaned back and folded his hands over his stomach. Prepare for what, exactly? There was no other file after the sixth one. He had no idea what Pandora did or what the parasite was capable of.

Besides, he just couldn’t imagine either of the Polaris victims doing what Pandora did. Reports about Joel described him as well-meaning, soft-hearted, and eager to learn. Joel was the kind of person who had witnessed an ixodida disemboweling lab rattata no fewer than four times and who had, according to descriptions from the behaviorist team, nearly fainted every time it happened. Some researchers even described him as “only remotely dangerous in that he’s clumsy.”

And Bill? Oak knew Bill. He was Bill’s mentor, his friend, someone who had practically watched him grow up. Oak knew what Bill was capable of, and what he saw in the video files was most definitely not in that category.

But more than that, there was something else nagging at Oak’s train of thought. Something missing in the story that he was given by the researchers who found Bill and Joel in Laboratory F.

Before he could dwell on it any further, there was a knock on his door. In response, he glanced across his sparsely furnished office.

“Come in!” he called.

At that moment, Professor Nettle opened the door and strode inside. Her thin hands clutched a tablet computer, and she fixed her gaze straight ahead on Professor Oak. The older researcher smiled and turned in his seat to face her. One of his large hands motioned towards a chair in front of his desk as an invitation to sit down, but Nettle glanced at it indifferently and moved to stand behind it. This hardly fazed Oak as he launched into a greeting.

“Ah! Professor Nettle! How are you?”

She lifted her chin slightly and responded, “Not well, Professor. I’ve come to give my full report.”

“Of course! Why don’t you take a seat?”

“No, thank you.” Her eyes moved to her tablet as her thin fingers brushed its glassy surface. “Professor, there have been no signs of sapience from either Codename Adam or Codename Abel. Violent tendencies persist, especially in Abel. Crews have successfully confined both specimens to medical pods, but we lost three assistants and Professor Fig to electrocution in the process.”

Oak’s face darkened. Abel. The assistant. The well-meaning, soft-hearted assistant who nearly fainted at the sight of a rattata being mutilated. And that was the person who just electrocuted four people to death. Professor Oak clenched his fists on his desk and exhaled.

“I see,” he said.

“Adam, meanwhile, was easier to contain due to its primarily physical abilities, but it was no less dangerous,” Nettle continued. “Crews handling Adam received treatment for lacerations, impalements, and one severed hand. All six will be released in a few days.”

Oak winced. Adam. His student. The professor’s mind continued to struggle with the thought of it, but he just couldn’t see either of them, either of the victims, as monsters. Yet there were four deaths and a number of injuries just from those two.

But ... he knew Bill since he was a child, and he trusted the reports about Joel. It just didn’t make sense.

“He,” Oak said, his voice graver than usual. “Let’s refer to Adam or Abel as he, not it.”

“I apologize, Professor.”

Oak leaned back in his chair and spread a hand on the desk. “It’s all right. Did you find anything else?”

“Two notes,” she responded. “First, neither victim matches the description of Pandora. I have contacted the biology team, and they estimate that Adam and Abel are actually sixty percent through the process. We should see a complete transformation in three days.”

“Ah.”

“Second.” Nettle folded her hands in front of her, holding the tablet to her waist. “Security and IT have finished running through the records. There was a breach in the system roughly twenty-six minutes prior to the discovery of Adam and Abel.”

“Hmm. Do you know who it was?”

“We have reason to believe it was Adam. The intruder accessed administrative-level operations without logging into the system, and the only information that was changed was the level of permissions given to Adam.”

Oak scratched his cheek as his expression broke into a sheepish glance. “I should’ve warned you about that. Bill sometimes gets a bit too eager for his own good.”

Nettle raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that putting it lightly, sir?”

Normally, Oak would have offered a hearty laugh, but it didn’t come this time. He was too tired, too pressed to do it. Instead, he grinned and kneaded a temple with three of his thick fingers.

“Ah yes. But enthusiasm can be a good quality in a good researcher.”

Nettle huffed. “Perhaps. However, the fact of the matter is that Adam broke into the system and caused a containment breach.”

Oak’s expression grew stern, and he relaxed the hand that was still on his desk. He wanted to disagree. He wanted to say something, but what could he say? There were pieces missing in this puzzle. Until he received word from Polaris’s officers concerning the security footage in Laboratory F, he was blocked from asking Nettle direct questions about what he thought happened. Instead, he had to settle for a deep breath and mental chess with all of his employees. And that meant agreeing with Professor Nettle, even if he knew without a doubt that, somehow, this wasn’t Bill’s fault.

“Yes,” he said. “Our computer experts are working on upgrading the security measures around Laboratory F. New locks, new transfer system, and everything in between.”

“And will that be enough to prevent another incident?”

Oak grinned. “Well, it’ll be enough to prevent curiosity from killing the meowth.”

Nettle arched an eyebrow. “Sir, with all due respect, is this the right time to be cracking jokes?”

“You know what they say, Professor Nettle! Laughter is the best potion!”

Nettle lowered her head and sighed again. Then, she stood.

“Yes. Well. I will take that into consideration, sir,” she said. “Permission to be dismissed?”

“Yes, of course,” Oak replied. “But keep your head up, Professor Nettle. Bill and Mr. Anderson are still alive, so there’s hope for them yet.”

Nettle nodded and turned to leave. As she did, Oak laced his fingers together and propped his elbows on his desk in thought. When Nettle was halfway to the door, Oak cleared his throat.

“Professor Nettle, don’t you think it’s strange?”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Strange?”

Oak nodded. “Yes. The transfer system right now only carries one specimen at a time. There were two involved in the incident, and both of them were positioned right over Adam and Abel’s hearts. What do you make of that?”

Nettle shook her head and closed the distance between herself and the door. “That Adam wasn’t overly enthusiastic, sir.”

She opened the door and slipped out without another word. Once the door clicked shut behind her, Oak frowned.

“Funny. It tells me Bill’s been framed.”

 

* * *

 

Professor Yvonne Nettle was not having a good day.

It took all of her reserve not to slam Professor Oak’s door behind her as she stalked out of the office and into the hallway. As soon as she was a good distance from the door, however, her lips pursed, and her gait quickened. Her feet stomped into the vinyl flooring hard, as if her heels could jackhammer the rage out of her body into and into the ground. She was certainly not in the mood to deal with anyone at that point, especially not the young woman who appeared seemingly out of nowhere and fell into step beside her.

“Our benefactor is livid,” Nettle hissed.

“Our _benefactor_ is livid?” the blonde snorted. “Looks to me like the only one who’s livid is—”

“Before you let that famous mouth of yours run,” Nettle snapped, “I would like to say that your actions have compromised our entire operation. Professor Oak knows that something is amiss, and frankly, a child can easily see why. You barely even tried to cover yourself with that flimsy accident story of yours. And why on Earth did you choose their chests as infection sites? Anyone would have been able to figure out that Anderson and McKenzie could never have accidentally released parasites that would just happen to bite them in the exact same areas.”

“We made do with what we could,” 009 replied as she crossed her arms. “It’s not like we had all the time in the world to fix what those stupid field agents did.”

Nettle stopped and whirled around. Her companion jolted to a halt right beside her.

“That would be another thing,” Nettle continued, her voice low and rumbling. “Our benefactor is far from happy that you had chosen to infect McKenzie. Do you have any idea how much danger you have put our entire organization in with that brilliant oversight of yours? We had direct orders not to touch him. Direct orders from people who can dismantle our organization in fantastically creative ways but had the mercy of leaving us alone so long as we agreed that we would never touch McKenzie.”

“It was either that or eliminate him!” 009 whined. “He knew too much! I was as clear as I could be in my instructions. If those three idiots hadn’t grabbed him when they snatched Anderson, then—”

“Agent 009, might I remind you that you volunteered to be the captain of Operation North Star?” Nettle growled. “As captain, you hold responsibility over your team’s actions, including their errors.”

She cringed. “W-wait. So do you! You’re the project director, aren’t you? Doesn’t that mean that you’re just as responsible as I am?”

“I fully realize that. That is why I find your incompetence completely unacceptable. Our benefactor agrees.”

009 took a half step backwards to brace herself for the oncoming blow. Her hands balled into fists, and she gritted her teeth as she glared steadily at her superior.

Nettle peered over the top of her half-frame glasses. “But. Our benefactor is also generous. He wishes to give you one more chance, on the condition that I monitor your every move to ensure that you don’t fail us again.”

At that, 009 relaxed. She straightened, her hands smoothing her scrubs as she took a step forward.

“Trust me. I won’t.”

Nettle narrowed her eyes. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic card. Tossing it at 009, she waited until the girl deftly snatched it out of the air before speaking.

“Good,” she said. “Your instructions are simple. That is an upgraded pass to Laboratory Q. Go there and oversee the programming of the tracking collars that will be fitted on Anderson and McKenzie. We have a few programmers who will ensure that Polaris won’t be the only ones tracking their movements.”

009 nodded. Then, after a pause, she glanced up. “And?”

“That’s all.”

With that, 009 furrowed her eyebrows. “What? That’s all? You just want me to sit around and watch some hackers make dog collars? Please tell me you’ll at least have me put them on our targets.”

“Our benefactor doesn’t even trust you to do that,” Nettle replied. “I will personally handle the fitting. All you need to do is ensure that the programmers have fully tested the data transfer system before that happens.”

The agent clenched her teeth and crossed her arms again. “Fine. And the relocation? Will I at least get a part in that?”

“Perhaps.”

Nettle turned and began walking down the hallway. After she took a few steps, she glanced back over her shoulder for one last note. 

“Now get to work.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bill was most certainly not having a good day. For one, he was pretty sure he just died.

The entire ordeal wasn’t going his way from the time he slipped out of consciousness on the floor of Laboratory F. From then onward, he faded in and out of blackness. But the moments that weren’t black felt strange to him, as if he was watching his body from the outside. He watched as he ripped off his own skin and found blood-slicked silver plates underneath. His fingers fell off, and in their places were sharp, silver claws. Every so often, his body convulsed and spat out teeth or shed hair in sickly green clumps. At one point, he saw himself thrashing in the hands of assistants, and although he couldn’t see through the crowds of people, he watched the color red splashing across his line of sight. And the screaming. He could remember the screams and how they grew painfully louder with each second. And then there would be silence, followed by flashing glimpses of a white ceiling or a face he recognized. Sometimes, that face was Professor Oak, looking down in concern. Other times, there would be Professor Nettle, usually flanked by an assistant or two. At one point, he could remember her face and two others, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak to them. Instead, all he could do was let them lift him as they fixed something around his neck.

But then, after awhile, he began to see himself from the inside. He remembered darkness, but he could feel parts of himself shift. The vertebrae of his spine stretched apart at one point. His stomach twisted in knots at others. Bones snapped and melted together in new configurations. Glands sprouted like tumors on his brainstem.

The strange thing was he couldn’t feel pain. It was exactly like the blonde had told him: it wasn’t painful to him. It wasn’t him screaming when he saw himself from the outside, and it wasn’t him convulsing when his bones melted and his stomach twisted. It was something else. He was stuck in the darkness, stuck behind his eyes and left to watch.

And then he died.

Death wasn’t what he expected it to be. Granted, he didn’t think about death that much besides how to avoid it, but he didn’t realize that he would feel—actually _feel—_ his body shut down. His heart shuddered to a stop. His throat choked on air. An electric pulse ran through his nerves, and he felt as if all of the muscles of his body throbbed all at once.

Then there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until he opened his eyes. After that, there was the blue moon.

Bill lay on the ground for a long while. His fingers curled around soft, cold dirt and waxy-leaved grass until a realization hit him: he could move. Jolting into a sitting position, he looked up, into the black canopy of a forest. Beyond the dark, broad leaves of the trees above him was the blue moon: a huge, round, swirling mass of azure set against a red sky. Bill squinted at it as he shakily rose to his feet and absentmindedly dusted himself off. It was, for lack of a better term in his mind, absolutely beautiful. A soft, cobalt aura ebbed from its edges, and the swirling, cyan storms pooled across its smooth surface. It almost looked like a star, like Jupiter cut and polished from aquamarine.

He would have stood there for years, staring up at the blue moon, but instead, he heard music. At first, it was soft and quiet, nearly indistinguishable from the wind of the forest, but the more he strained to hear it, the more it resolved into something coherent. He tilted his head in its direction and listened carefully to the tinny notes of a music box. The melody was familiar to him, like something his mother used to sing, but he couldn’t quite put a name to the tune.

The fantastic thing about being dead is that ideas that might have sounded stupid when one was alive would sound perfectly reasonable in the afterlife. Not that Bill’s sense of when an idea was and wasn’t dangerous was all that reliable in the first place. After all, he thought that a hallway in a security-heavy facility wasn’t dangerous, but then less than two minutes later, his brain was screaming at him over and over again on the subject how dangerous attempting to break free from Team Rocket agents would be. It was all situational, but had he been alive, he would have insisted that the music box melody of a childhood song wafting through an alien forest he didn’t remember traveling to would lead directly to a trap. But there he was, walking towards it, his legs brushing against flat-leaved weeds and waxy grass.

Still, he couldn’t help but think of the same phrase over and over again. Curiosity killed the meowth.

“That’s morbidly true,” he murmured to himself.

He paused and rested his hand on a tree, his fingertips brushing against bark. But it didn’t feel right. It felt smooth and warm, like steel heated under his palm. Glancing at it, he could see it looked like any other trunk with rough, cracked, brown-green bark. He pushed away from it, turning away from the music as he shuffled backwards in confusion.

“What is this?” He stared at his hands—still human, still fleshy hands. “Wait. Maybe perception distorts when you don’t have a physical body. _Oh gods, I’m dead!_ ”

He clasped his hands over his eyes and stumbled. For the first time since he entered the forest, the full weight of that single revelation crashed down on him. He was dead. He would never see his family again. He would never write another paper. And if this was Hell, he would never even see another pokémon. Everything was gone.

His feet continued to shuffle backwards until his back hit something smooth and warm. It yielded easily under his weight, and before he could catch himself, he fell through it and tumbled back first into a pile of softness. Instinctively, he winced and then slowly opened his eyes once more.

Above him, he saw the canopy of a large tent. Bright purple and red cloth hung overhead to form walls and a ceiling, and he had apparently fallen through a bright red panel serving as a door. Tiny golden stars ran up each panel and led to golden ropes that hung from the tent’s ceiling. Some of the ropes ended in tassels, but others ended in brightly colored paper lamps that emitted soft lights or in heavy-looking golden incense burners from which purple, sweet-smelling smoke puffed. Bill rubbed his eyes and sat up. What broke his fall, as he found out, was a pile of cushions—purple and red cushions trimmed with twisting, gold rope.

The cushions, in fact, formed an uneven floor across a massive space lined with wooden doors of every color. Uncertain of his footing, Bill stayed near the entrance of the tent, but he cast his eyes around the room at each door, studying their faces and the intricate etchings on each one. Some of them were decorated with simple drawings of pokémon. Others were labeled with actual words, occasionally in languages he didn’t recognize.

“Where do those go?” he muttered. “Different afterlives?”

“No. Simply different parts of your mind.”

Bill whirled around to face the center of the room. Somehow, in the seconds his eyes were off it, a set of stairs grew out of the floor. The stairs were made of chests of drawers, with some drawers open and spilling out books, papers, pens and inkwells, and other small items Bill couldn’t readily identify from a distance. But at the top of the stairs was a platform covered in a pile of cushions next to a hookah with a green glass base. Reclining on top of these cushions, with the hookah’s mouthpiece in one slender hand, was a willowy creature made of pure light. The creature wasn’t emitting a blinding light, but no matter how hard Bill stared at it, its features refused to resolve. It was as if Bill was staring at a photograph of a person in which the person in question was painted over with pure white. It was, in one word, a blank.

Yet there it was, speaking to Bill with his voice as it sucked on the end of a hookah hose with a mouth that didn’t exist.

“You are not dead, by the way. Your heart was temporarily stopped to avoid further damage to itself. But do not worry. I let you borrow mine.”

Keeping his eyes on the creature, Bill reached down and began to dig a path through the pillows. Inch by inch, he crept closer to the figure. But he didn’t say a word. While it was a relief to know that he wasn’t dead, he had a feeling he knew exactly what this visitor was.

“Names bear fantastic power to your people,” the creature continued. “To you, names hold an object’s true meaning. It is not a sword until you call it a sword. I find it curious. Other species in this universe do not hold the individual in such high regard. We do not give names to each other. We find it redundant. It divides our unity and splits our identity. But you. No, I should be fair. Humans are not unique to that concept. There are others who consider names to hold great power, but I find you fascinating nonetheless.”

About halfway to the platform, Bill stopped. He studied the visitor for a few moments before he finally found his voice again.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Who am I?” the figure repeated. “That is quite a question. Perhaps it would be best to begin with asking who are _you_? Your name. Shall we divine your purpose from it? It is an old name, and that is important to know. Old names hold greater power than new ones. They come from your old tongues, the ones that believed in ancient gods that are long dead now. And the people who spoke the language that birthed your name were warriors, believers in frozen giants and soldier gods and great world-rending beasts. But your name is not one that attacks. No, rather, it defends. William. Will, meaning willpower and determination. Helm, meaning helmet and protection. From this, you are William, whose purpose is to be the determined protector. Yet you are not William, are you? You corrupt the name and therefore corrupt and shorten its meaning.”

The being bit the end of the hookah’s mouthpiece. Although it had no eyes, Bill could feel its stare bore into him as he pulled himself up onto the platform. He knelt there, beside the bubbling, green hookah base until the creature pulled the hose from its unseen mouth. It exhaled a cloud of purple-green smoke that swirled around its companion’s face. Burning, dense, incense-scented smoke filled Bill’s throat, and he coughed and flinched away from the creature.

When he looked back, however, he paused. The creature now had a face, one that stared back at him with an expression he couldn’t quite define. But the features he recognized right away. The dark eyes. The heart shape. The way its iridescent hair curled around its white skin. Bill would recognize the shape of those features anywhere. It was _his_ face.

“Therefore, I ask you,” the creature continued. “Who are _you_?”


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill violates the only rule regarding making deals with devils. Namely that you don't.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 10_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: MEMORANDUM_  
 _DESIGNATION: THE ADAM INCIDENT, FILE 01_  
 _DESCRIPTION: ARCHIVE OF INTERNAL DIGITAL MEMORANDA FROM PROFESSOR SAMUEL OAK, DIRECTOR OF POLARIS INSTITUTE, TO COMMITTEE MEMBER 02. AT THIS POINT, COMMITTEE INVOLVEMENT WITH D.E.V.A. IS STILL NOT PUBLICLY KNOWN._  
 _DATE-TIME: 06/10/02, 16:54_

_FROM: C-02_  
 _TO: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _MESSAGE: We have processed your full report of the containment breach. Your next instructions are as follows. You must keep Codenames Adam and Abel under secure lockdown until further notice. We are sending to you a specialist who will assist you in handling these specimens. Until then, you are to monitor Adam and Abel for any further developments and launch a thorough investigation into the cause of the containment breach. Any questions concerning these instructions or any new information may be forwarded to C-02._

_FROM: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _TO: C-02_  
 _MESSAGE: [CODENAME ADAM] hasn’t been showing the same violent behaviors as [CODENAME ABEL] or Codename Pandora for a few days now. Members of the behavioral team are saying this is a sign that maybe we can get through to him. We’d like to try to wake him up and see if he’s lucid._

_FROM: C-02_  
 _TO: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _MESSAGE: Do not proceed. Do not engage with Codename Adam._

_FROM: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _TO: C-02_  
 _MESSAGE: I hope I’m not out of line when I say this, but this is [CODENAME ADAM]. Surely it won’t hurt to at least try._

_FROM: C-02_  
 _TO: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _MESSAGE: Do not engage with Codename Adam. Violation of this order may result in termination from your position as director of Polaris Institute. Repeat: do not engage._

_FROM: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _TO: C-02_  
 _MESSAGE: Understood. May I make a request?_

_FROM: C-02_  
 _TO: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _MESSAGE: So long as the request does not violate your previous orders, the Committee is willing to consider it. What is your request?_

_FROM: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _TO: C-02_  
 _MESSAGE: [CODENAME ADAM]’s father, Professor [REDACTED], works for the New Bark Institute branch. I’d like to at least let him know about his son’s condition._

_FROM: C-02_  
 _TO: OAK, SAMUEL_  
 _MESSAGE: Request acknowledged and deemed acceptable._

_[END CORRESPONDENCE.]_

* * *

Bill coughed in the haze of smoke, but he stood his ground. “I beg your pardon?”

The creature—the thing that looked just like him the longer he stared at it—turned its head away from him and sucked on the hookah’s mouthpiece again.

“Who,” it responded, exhaling a snake of purple-green smoke, “are you?”

“If you’re trying to send me on an existential journey, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you,” Bill rasped. He covered his mouth and nose and glared at the being. “I already went on one nine years ago. I know exactly who I am. I just don’t care for being formal. Who are you, and _why are you in my head?_ ”

The figure looked at him, and for the first time, Bill noticed something strange about its face besides the fact that it was his. Even though Bill could tell that this being was expressing emotion, it wasn’t through the face. At every question, all the creature did was stare at its surroundings evenly, even blankly, as if its face was actually a mask. In truth, Bill couldn’t put into words how he knew what emotion the being was expressing. He only knew. It was like the feeling one got if someone stared at them long enough—a creeping, hot sensation on the back of one’s neck.

And as soon as he realized this, Bill felt incredibly, intensely uneasy.

“You assume I am asking you existential questions, but you misunderstand,” the creature continued. “I am simply stalling until you can put together what it is I am for yourself.”

Bill swallowed hard. “I already know what you are. You’re the parasite. I don’t know how you managed to break into my subconscious, but—”

“We are symbionts of one another. Your body is mine now.”

“But my head isn’t.”

“Do we not share a nervous system?”

“That makes absolutely no sense!” Bill sighed and looked away. He had to control his emotions, regardless of how much his instincts were screaming at him to run. This wasn’t the time to lose himself. “Are you a psychic-type?”

The creature stared at Bill briefly as it drew in another hit from the hookah’s hose. Its face was still expressionless, but that didn’t stop the cold, clammy, uneasy knot in the pit of Bill’s stomach from growing.

“Ah, the scientist,” it said. “Always asking questions. It is a shame you are human. All of your questions are the wrong ones, but that is to be expected of your species.”

Bill sighed again, this time in exasperation. “All I want to know is how you’re in my head.”

His companion drew the hookah pipe into its mouth again. Its lips shaped its next words around the hard tip.

“Is that really what you want to know?”

In those precious seconds, Bill hesitated. His eyes shifted back to the figure, and he stood there in thought. He wanted to say yes, but his mouth couldn’t shape the word. It would have been a lie anyway. There were so many other questions he needed to ask. Were the visions real? Was he really dead? If he was dead, why was he seeing the parasite? What was he supposed to do now? What was the parasite exactly? Where did it come from? Why was it there?

But the longer he stood, the more a single question wormed its way to the front of his mind. As his brain wrapped itself around it, he felt himself relax, his body slacken, and his eyelids grow heavy. It was the incense, he thought, but the dreamscape itself somehow made him tired. He watched as the creature exhaled, as the sweet-smelling smoke swept through the air. The wisp curled around him and distorted, and he could swear that the end of it formed the long, jagged snout and claws of a dragon.

It was then that his question spilled out of his mouth, almost by its own volition.

“What do you want from me?”

The creature eyed him and put aside the pipe. “You may be smarter than you look.”

“So I’ve been told,” Bill whispered vaguely. “Please answer my question.”

His companion did not smile, but Bill could swear that there was a shifting shadow in its eyes, a shadow that somehow made the mask look like it was laughing. Bill felt like he was being stared at in the same way that an adult might look at a child who said something stupid. Something about that mask put Bill on edge, but he stood where he was, feet rooted to the platform. At the same time, the creature swept its legs over the edge of its throne and stood. White fabric swirled around the being’s figure and formed a robe that obscured its body except for its human face and its long, thin hands. The being brought the pipe to its mouth again as it stared directly into Bill’s eyes.

With each word it spoke, a stream of smoke curled from its mouth. “Form a contract with me.”

“What?”

The creature cupped Bill’s chin in a hand—a hand that, he realized, was actually tipped with sharp, metallic claws. “A contract. You want to live, do you not?”

“Of course I do,” Bill replied hoarsely.

“I can make that happen,” it told him. “Currently, my heart is beating for our body, and my nerves are connected to our nerves. All it will take is a shock to force our heart to begin beating, and you will be able to live again.” It leaned closer. “Of course, you will get so much more than that. My kind normally steps aside and allows our hosts to die from the transformation, but we can also shield them and shape their bodies around them, as you have noticed already. I have already done part of that for you, but it is the aftermath that may break an ordinary, independent host. Not many of those who bear us can control our abilities, but I can help you adapt and learn. I can assist your mind in molding to the body I will give you, and I can teach you how to wield our gifts without destroying yourself. In short, I offer you the ability to live. Perhaps not as a human, but you will live.”

Bill wanted to back away. He wanted to move. The voice in his head, the one that told him to run from something dangerous, was now back and louder than ever. But he stood still, staring deep into a reflection of his own eyes and feeling metal nails scratch his chin.

“A-and you?” he stammered. “Contracts go two ways. What do you get in exchange for my cooperation?”

The being tilted its head. “Astute. What do I want in return? That is simple. I only used the word _‘our’_ in reference to the thing that had been _your_ body, did I not?”

Bill tried to pull away at that point, but the creature tightened its grip on his face.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Of course.”

It nodded. “Of course. It is in your name. I am a symbiont, and you are my host. My kind underestimate how valuable you humans are, but I know. Protect me, and I will protect you. Do we have a deal?”

“I don’t trust you,” he responded bluntly.

The creature pulled its hand away at last but kept its head tilted. Its eyes bore into Bill, and he felt it study him carefully.

“A wise move,” it said. “But you do not have much of a choice, do you? I am already inside you. I have already changed your body. You cannot simply go back to the world you knew. I told you that the contract would give you life. Do you realize, then, what you would receive if you were to decline my offer?”

It didn’t have to finish, and Bill didn’t have to be a genius to know what the alternative was. Yet he nodded and shrugged at the thought anyway.

“I want to propose my own clause for you,” he said.

The creature stepped back and drew the pipe to its mouth once more. “Go on.”

“I’ll agree to your terms only if you swear that I can trust you.”

Another pause. Once again, the creature looked Bill over carefully and drew another hit through the hookah’s mouthpiece.

“You must be brave, giving me an order. You do realize, do you not, that I hold control over our physical form? If I choose to kill you, I can easily release your mind into your body, wait for you to die, and reanimate your corpse to fit my needs.”

Bill smirked. “Exactly why I need you to agree to that clause. I’m not brave, but I know that I have nothing to lose by negotiating. If I disagree to your terms, then I die. If you disagree to my addition, then I would reject your contract and still die. I’d only really lose if I agree to a contract that has loopholes you can abuse. If I’m to survive, I’ll need a guarantee that you won’t hurt me.”

“This contract seems more and more as if it is tailored to suit your needs,” the creature replied. “If you must negotiate, do it properly. What do I get in return for agreeing to your addition?”

“What can I offer you?” Bill asked. “I don’t know anything about you or your species.”

“Do you not?” The parasite inhaled once more, and then, in a perfect imitation of Bill’s voice, it recited, “Pokémon 2000LH, known tentatively as ixodida. Its origin is technically unknown, but the current prevailing theory is that it’s connected to the meteor shower that occurred over Fortree City ten months ago due to the timing and location of the ixodida sightings. Very little else is known about it except that it’s exclusively carnivorous and a highly aggressive predator at that. Reports of it have only been able to come from a handful of survivors and media outlets prior to the Hoenn quarantine. No one is even sure what it looks like because its aggression and speed practically guarantee that anyone who sees it has very little chance of surviving.”

Bill blanched. His voice wavered as he replied, “How … how did you do that?”

“I am connected to you, remember?” It turned its head away from him. “Your thoughts. Your memories. They are all coded into your brain. At any time, I can reach into your mind and draw forth what I want. And that is what is preventing me from killing you. I am not a scientist, and I know nothing of your planet. But you? You have a wealth of knowledge on both Earth’s technology and the lifeforms that inhabit it, and because of that, you have the ability to interpret any new information we receive. Why would I waste that resource?” It hesitated briefly, and its hand curled in the air before drawing the hookah pipe back to its lips. “You see, Bill, what I want most from you is your brain. I need you to tell me more about your world.”

“Why?”

The parasite eyed him. “Why?”

Bill nodded, his expression hardening into as grave a look as he could muster. “Yes. Why would you need to know?”

Raising its chin, the creature took one more hit from the hookah. “Because my kind is elsewhere in this world.”

“And you need to find them? And then what?”

“I do not need to find them. I need to survive them.” The being shut one eye. “You see, Bill, you and I are a lot alike. Our respective people consider us to be … anomalies. On my home world, I was an outcast of sorts. People treated me differently because of what I was.”

Bill raised his eyebrows. “Differently? Did they …?”

It peered at him from over the mouthpiece. “I worry that on this planet, that same behavior will continue. I can sense that my people are congregating on an island far from here—the island where I first arrived on your planet, in fact. Once they do, I fear what that may mean for your kind.”

At that, Bill started. “What? Do you … do you mean to say that we could be facing an invasion?”

His companion shrugged and sat down. “Perhaps. It is a very real possibility.”

Bill stepped forward, planting his foot on the first of the cushions. “What about a war?”

“Perhaps,” the creature repeated. It cast half-lidded eyes on Bill. “My species is militaristic once we acquire host bodies. It is our nature to gather and establish footholds on the planets we inhabit. We will do anything to prevent the existing dominant species from interfering with the growth of our new world. There is no guarantee that my kind will want peace from yours.”

“No,” Bill whispered. His eyes tore away from his companion, and his gaze darted across the floor. “No. No, that can’t happen!” His glance drifted back towards the parasite. “Listen. There are countless lives on this planet, and every single one of them has a meaning. If there’s a war, then ...”

“Then those countless lives have no guaranteed future,” it finished. “I know that, but I cannot say that the rest of my kind does.”

Bill bent over just enough to lock eyes with the parasite. “Then what do we do?”

Putting aside the hookah’s hose, it offered him a slender hand.

“We form a contract,” it said. “You asked me what I wanted from the deal. I want your knowledge and your cooperation. Therefore, allow me to restate the terms of the contract. I will give you the freedom to live. I will assist you in adapting to our body, and I will teach you how to use our gifts. All I require from you is your knowledge and your cooperation. When I ask you to act, you will act exactly as I tell you to do so. In all other cases, our body will be yours to command. Understood?”

“Yes,” Bill replied firmly. “And the trust clause?”

“Bill, I am a symbiont. Anything I do will be in your best interests. I cannot gain anything from you if you are dead.”

“Promise anyway. I need the assurance that I can trust you.”

“Very well. As part of my end of our bargain, I will neither utter a single lie to you nor act in a way that will be a detriment our body. You have my word that I will do everything I can to ensure our survival.” It pushed its hand closer to Bill. “Now. Do we have a deal or not?”

Bill examined the hand and then exhaled. “I really hope I’m not making a mistake here.”

He grasped the being’s hand, and instantly, his world turned hot and white. It felt like a jolt of lightning ran through him all at once, and for the briefest second, he couldn’t feel a thing. It was as if his entire body went numb, like the first seconds of deep sleep, between full consciousness and a dream. Then, he felt himself dropping as hazy, pastel colors swirled around him. His fall abruptly stopped after a second, and all at once, his vision cleared until the being’s pale face hovered over him. It took Bill a moment to realize that his partner was holding him up, and it took another for the parasite to lay him carefully on the cushioned throne. Once he felt the softness of his support against his back, Bill began to notice that his body felt hot and heavy, as if his limbs were chained to iron weights. Even breathing took some effort as he forced his head to turn to the creature.

It, meanwhile, busied itself by stepping down the stairs of the platform gingerly. One of its clawed hands gently scratched the surface of the drawers set into each step. The longer Bill watched it move, the more a voice in his head squeaked that something wasn’t right.

“What … what did you do to me?” he rasped.

“Signed the contract and took the first step in upholding our deal,” his companion replied. “I have given you back our body and restarted your heart. That weight you feel is partly you readjusting to having a physical form and partly the fact that our physical form is heavier than the body you owned as a human. I took the liberty of molding it into something durable enough to suit our purposes. There you are.”

At the last three words, the parasite leaned into one of the steps. It pulled open a drawer and peered into the soft, red light emanating from inside. Carefully, it reached in and drew out a wooden cigar box inlaid with intricate swirls and spots. Its hand ran over the carvings on the top as it walked back up the steps. With its free hand, it grabbed one of Bill’s shoulders and pulled him into a sitting position before wrapping an arm around him for support.

“Here,” it said as it placed the box in Bill’s lap.

Glancing down, Bill stared at the lid. He ran his fingers across the swirling wood carvings until his fingertips caressed the triple spiral etched on the top.

“What is this?” he murmured weakly.

“A gift,” the creature explained. “It is part of the second clause to our bargain, in which I promised to teach you how to adapt to our form. Inside this box, you will find knowledge, Bill. This will not be the only method I will use to teach you, but it is a quick way to give you a basic understanding.”

“Of what?”

The creature leaned in and lifted the lid of the box slowly.

“Of our body, of course,” it told him.

It threw the lid open completely, and for the second time, Bill was blinded by a white light. This time, instead of the pastel colors, the light resolved into darkness. But it didn’t just resolve into darkness, no. It resolved into a hum. A dull, full-body pain. The sharp, bitter smell of sanitizers. And a cold so deep Bill could feel it in his bones.

And then he opened his eyes.


	6. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gregor Samsa awakens one morning from uneasy dreams.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 9_ _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: FILE_  
 _DESIGNATION: THE ADAM INCIDENT, FILE 03_  
 _DESCRIPTION: FIRST DRAFT OF D.E.V.A. CONTAINMENT FILE FOR INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS 2000KH-B/02, CODENAME ADAM._  
 _DATE-TIME: 10/10/02, 09:20_

_SUBJECT ID #: SE-650_  
 _CODE NAME: ADAM_  
 _CURRENT LOCATION: POLARIS INSTITUTE, CINNABAR ISLAND, KANTO_  
 _OBJECT CLASS: II, PENDING APPROVAL  
_ _CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: PENDING_

_ADDENDUM 650-01: ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES_

_My, my. [CODENAME ADAM] is certainly getting popular with us lately. First the incident report from Polaris and now this. —C-01_

_I trust Professor Oak has contacted you regarding this? —C-02_

_Yes. And I’m livid as hell. Who’s in charge of indexing Adam? —C-01_

_The job was assigned to Dr. Sage along with indexing Abel. Professor Oak has been notified. —C-02_

_Retract Sage’s orders. I’m assigning Polaris to myself. —C-01_

_That would not be advisable given your connection to Adam. —C-02_

_Listen here, you bug-eyed bastard. If you think I’d be emotionally compromised around [CODENAME ADAM], you have no idea who you’re talking to. I’ve spent almost twenty years monitoring this boy. I know how to handle him. —C-01_

_Twenty years is enough time to form an emotional bond that will affect your judgment. —C-02_

_Exactly. Anyone else will be stupid enough to focus on studying [CODENAME ADAM]. I, on the other hand, am bothered enough to know we’re not dealing with any ordinary situation. —C-01_

_Clarification needed. —C-02_

_I’m saying something’s happening at Polaris, and it goes well beyond [CODENAME ADAM]. You and Sage would be thick enough to believe this accident report, yeah? Oak and I know [CODENAME ADAM] well enough to know that his involvement’s a dead giveaway. The boy may be thick as a bidoof when it comes to what counts, but he’s not stupid enough to infect himself. Either we’re dealing with an entity that’s stronger and smarter than we thought it was, or some dense bastard just violated the Yeled Protocol. I’m not reconsidering. I’m going to Polaris, and furthermore, if Adam’s classification goes any further than this without my review, may God help whoever pushed it forward. Understood? —C-01_

_Understood. Good luck, sir. —C-02_

 

* * *

 

Slowly, voices came back to Bill, picking their way out of the indeterminate hum to reach the surface of his brain.

“Pulse is increasing. Pulmonary functions detected. Sir, its eyes!”

The hum stopped.

“That’s impossible! How long have its vital signs been unreadable?”

“Nine minutes, sir!”

Bill squinted. What were they talking about?

“Withdraw drone! Chansey, get out of there! Hold the call to Professor Oak! We need an update here!”

He turned his head, just in time to see a red light engulf a chansey right beside him. The light withdrew into a port in the wall as the oxygen mask that the pokémon had been holding dropped to the floor with a clatter.

Oxygen mask?

Bill sat up, blinking at the device.

“Sir! It’s up! It sat up!”

“I can see that! Forget the hold on that call! We need Professor Oak right away! Gardevoir, disable it and prepare for containment!”

A blue glow colored Bill’s world, and suddenly, he couldn’t move. His voice caught in his throat in a strangled cry, and he strained against an invisible force to glance towards his other side. When he did, he came face-to-face with a gardevoir, enveloped in blue with its green arms outstretched towards him. Beyond it was a wall-length window. Scientists stood beyond it, staring with alarm at him. Their assistants rushed behind them, donning reflective suits and black-visored masks. Panic welled in Bill’s chest as he watched the assistants disappear at the edge of the window. A door next to it swung open, and the assistants filed in, darting directly to Bill’s side.

“Sir,” one of the scientists said. “The collar is detecting a spike in adrenaline in Adam’s blood.”

“Then proceed with caution,” another replied. “Gardevoir, hold it down. The rest of you, reprogram the medical pod. Quickly! We need six CCs of sevoflurane before it breaks free!”

Hold it down? Sevoflurane? Bill’s heart thudded rapidly as the assistants gathered around the medical table he sat on. The unseen force strengthened on his limbs and chest, and he realized, as he felt it push him down onto the bed, that they didn’t see him as human. Their orders were about _him_.

He squirmed weakly under the psychic hold as soon as his mind grasped this. _No,_ he thought. _No! Please!_

One of the assistants bent over a control panel in the base of the pod. As he listened to the clacking of keys, Bill felt a power grow inside him. It ebbed at the edge of his body and throbbed against the psychic field like water building up in a kinked hose. The medical pod whirred to life, and the hands of the other assistants reached down to pull Bill’s wrists and ankles towards the edges of the pod. He felt one of the humans begin to tie restraints on his left hand, but that was nothing compared to the burning pain of the power building in his chest. His vision swam. His heart thundered. His body vibrated with energy.

And then, he couldn’t hold it back.

“Let. Me. GO!” he screamed.

A brilliant, green light flooded the room and blasted the assistants away from him. The invisible force holding him down vanished, and the restraint on his left hand ripped away. As soon as the green light dimmed, something in Bill’s head clicked. He couldn’t think about the assistants, nor could he wonder about the gardevoir. Everything inside him told him to run, and without thinking, he dove off the bed, rolled across the floor, and sprinted out of the room—on all fours.

If he had been thinking clearly, Bill would have stopped and realized what he was doing. But right then, all of his thoughts revolved around running. Running away from the scientists rushing out of his reach. Running into the door across the room and knocking it open. Running down the empty hall at full tilt on all fours. Above him, a siren burst to life, and red emergency lights flashed. Neither helped Bill at all as his instincts started to demand that he find a place to hide—and soon. Hurtling past locked lab doors, Bill frantically searched the walls for one particular sign. And when he found it, he slammed into its door and spilled into a men’s bathroom.

Darting to the sinks, Bill shakily rose to his feet, gripping the sides of one porcelain basin for stability. He panted for a long while, struggling to calm himself enough to get a grip on his thoughts. When he could finally think straight, he lifted his chin, glanced in the mirror …

… And immediately descended back into a panic.

He yelped and stumbled backwards, shielding himself with an arm. One that, as he noticed right then, wasn’t made of soft, human flesh. Shaking, he held his hands in front of his face and examined the metal plates covering almost every inch of his arms. Glistening red garnets were set in his palms, but otherwise, his limbs were pure silver, from his smooth shoulder to the tips of his curved, clawed fingers. Pulling his hands to his torso, Bill listened in numb horror to the clicking sounds they made when they caressed the metal plates encasing his stomach and chest. The plates were smooth and polished, and there were no signs of the tendrils that radiated under his skin in his last memory. However, the parasite was still there, glistening from its place embedded in the armor over his heart. He touched it carefully but recoiled when he felt his fingertip against its jewel-like surface.

“What?” he breathed.

Glancing down, he found his feet: giant, three-taloned things that looked like they better fit a raptor than his body. Shuffling backwards, he watched his legs move—the way the ankle, now several inches above where it should have been, pulled the broad foot almost to his thigh with each step.

Then, he saw it. The most inhuman addition to his body. It snaked up his side, brushing his hip in an effort to avoid tripping him. The spade tip at its end flashed as it rose, and each segment of its reptilian length clacked nervously.

And he felt it. He felt it twist in the air. He felt it scrape across the hard floor. He felt every segment of it all at once, including the part, now that he thought about it, where it joined the rest of his body at the base of his spine.

“A tail,” Bill whimpered as he shuffled forward and gripped the sink again. “A _tail_.”

It shuddered and rested on the floor behind him. He, meanwhile, tried one more time to look at his reflection. Thankfully, that part of him was still largely human. Largely, that is, in that it was covered with human skin and still retained the shape and look of a human face. Except Bill’s mouth hadn’t been full of fangs as a human, his hair certainly wasn’t iridescent and wiry as if it was made of optical fibers, and he most certainly didn’t have horns. One of his hands shakily rose to touch the latter, tracing the blunted, cat-ear-shaped bone jutting out of the top of his skull. From there, the claw drifted down the side of Bill’s head, feeling his human ears and the small plates on the sides of his neck until he came to the last change about himself: a collar.

The item was black and metallic, with a black box bearing Polaris’s logo on its front. Bill grasped it and pulled, worming his nail underneath it just enough for him to realize that it wasn’t actually part of his new body. He wasn’t sure why, but he took a certain amount of relief from that.

_I personally do not like it._

With a gasp, Bill pushed away from the sink and stared straight down, back at the jewel in his chest again. It flashed once with a pulsing light.

_Impressive,_ the parasite said. _I thought it would have taken you longer to piece together who was speaking. But then again, you are different from most humans. You did not lose yourself upon seeing your new form._

“You,” Bill rasped. “What did you do to me?!”

_I told you. Were you not listening?_ _I explained to you that you will no longer live as a human and that I had changed you. Perhaps I was not clear enough, but what did you think I meant?_

“I … I don’t know! I thought it was figurative!” Bill moved to the sink and bent over it, clasping his hands over his head and pushing it down into the basin. “Change me back.”

_That is impossible._

He threw his hands into the air and tilted his head back. “Please!”

_I cannot. The change is, as you say, one-way. The culmination of what we are is stronger than your human form, hence why it can survive the transformation. Your human body was too fragile. Even if I had the power to reverse the process, your human self will be rendered too weak to live._

“Gods.” Bill pressed a hand to his forehead. “This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening.”

_It is, and you must deal with it. You will be fine so long as—_

“How could you say that?!” Bill screamed as he gripped the sink again. “I’m not human anymore! Do you understand what that means?!”

_It means that you are now fully equipped to understand us._

“Don’t joke about that!” Bill pushed off the sink and turned. Taking a few steps forward, he placed a hand over his chest. “I changed my mind. I want to dissolve the contract.”

_What?_

“You heard me. I don’t want this.”

_The contract cannot be dissolved, Bill. You and I had an agreement._

“You said that you could take over my corpse if need be. If that’s the case, then do it! I don’t want this!”

_Bill. Do not make me do anything that the both of us will regret._

His fingers curled, scratching at his chest. “Do what you want. I can’t handle this. I—”

Before he could finish, his entire body seized. He dropped to his knees with a bang, and his vision darkened. It felt like someone was running an electric current through his body.

_Do not be selfish,_ the parasite hissed. _Do you not remember what you said to me? You wanted to protect your world. Are you seriously going to forget that desire just because I have given you the means to do it?_

Unable to verbally respond, Bill shuddered and lowered his head. His eyes stung, and he felt tears running across his skin and drip onto the metal plates of his arms.

_You are afraid. I understand that. It is alarming at first to come face to face with what you have become. But perhaps you should take pleasure in the fact that you are stronger than many other hosts. Most of them would have been driven insane by the first glance, yet here you are, trembling like a child. That alone is most hopeful._

“Stop,” he whispered. “Just stop.”

_As frightening as it is, you must come to embrace this body, Bill. It is who you are now, and it is your best tool to carry out your chief desire. But more importantly, it is your protection._

A shiver ran through Bill’s body, and he strained against the electric sensation just enough to press his forehead into the cold floor. “Please. Please … I can’t do this!”

_You must. Why do you fear this change in yourself? Is it because you are afraid you cannot face your kind anymore? Is that truly much of a concern for you, who hid yourself away in a lighthouse far from civilization already?_

Bill turned his head and cried into the floor. “No.”

_Then what is it? If you do not fear being alone, do you fear the unknown? No, that cannot be it. You do not fear the unknown but rather run towards it, do you not? Is that not your duty as a scientist? If that is so, then what might this fear be? Is it for frightening your kind? Being seen as a monster?_

He didn’t respond to that claim.

_Ah. That is it, is it not? That you fear being a monster? I assure you, Bill, that that should not be a concern of yours. Allow me to emphasize why I have insisted that we forge a contract. You are a unique individual. Your mind is stronger than you give it credit for. Even when faced with months of complete isolation, you do not flinch, and when you probe a pokémon’s mind while wearing its skin, you do not lose yourself in the delirium. You are stable. Fantastically so. And you are better than this. You are merely startled by the fact that this was not your choice, but I know you can adapt. Try._

The electric sensation stopped, and suddenly, Bill felt as if a weight had been lifted off his body. Carefully, he pushed himself onto his seat and pressed his eyes against the smooth metal of his arm. His armor felt hot against the skin of his face, and his skin felt blazing against his armor.

“That,” he murmured with a forced laugh, “was the worst attempt at encouragement I have ever heard.”

_But I pushed you to think about it, did I not?_

Bill pushed himself backwards until his shoulders pressed against the wall beneath the sink. The alarms still blared overhead, but for the first time, Bill noticed that they were muffled here. Not quite as grating. He clung to the pulsing scream because it, somehow, was less maddening than his entire situation.

“No. But the alternative is not an option, is it? You’re not going to let me die.”

_According to our agreement, I cannot. It is my duty to do no harm to you. Standing by and allowing you to do harm to yourself counts. Therefore, it is in my best interests to stop you._

“Your best interests.” Bill glanced at the parasite. “That sounds … ominous.”

_It is meant to be an accurate statement. Until your best interests involve surviving, I am afraid I must decide what is right for you._

“Fantastic,” Bill muttered as he tilted his head back.

A new sound filtered through the wall right then. Shifting, Bill pressed the side of his face against the tiles. His eyebrows furrowed as he strained to listen through the concrete to the other side.

There were dogs barking. Growlithe, to be specific. And they were getting closer.

Bill pushed his face away from the wall and stared at it in confusion.

_Growlithe. A fire-type pokémon of the puppy species. Extremely loyal to its trainer. Will bark at any opponent to protect them from harm._

“Why are they here?” Bill whispered.

_Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you escaped._

“Escaped …?” Bill pulled himself out from under the sink and stood, resting one hand on the basin and the other on his head. “Oh. Oh no. Not good.”

_Obviously. What are you going to do about it?_

“I-I don’t know.” He pressed his eyes shut. “Hold on. Let me think.”

The barking was getting louder. Bill could hear it through the wall without having to press himself against it, and the longer he stood, the more the barking started to drown out the alarms. His tail whipped behind him in agitation, and he focused on that to ground him. A plan. He needed a plan. Opening his eyes, he gripped his head and heaved a frustrated sigh. Only one idea came to mind.

“I need to talk to them,” he said plainly. “If they’re really after me, then I need to tell them this has all been a misunderstanding.”

_I highly doubt that would work._

“Well, I don’t have many other options here!” he hissed. “I can’t fight them. That will only establish that I _am_ a monster. I can’t run because there’s no way out of this building except through security, and hiding is likewise out of the question. The only reasonable solution is talking to them. Who knows? Maybe they’re not after me. And if they are, perhaps they’ll listen to what I have to say if I’m reasonable with them.”

_And if they do not listen?_

Bill stood and stalked back to the door of the bathroom. His tail swayed behind him, brushing against the floor with gentle scratches. Back and forth. Back and forth. The tiny splinter of panic in his brain faded away with each scratch he heard.

When he reached the door, he pressed a palm against its metal surface and waited. The barking drew closer and closer and closer until it was just outside the door. Then it turned into a steady growl.

“If they don’t,” Bill whispered, “then I’ll figure something out when I get to that.”

He pushed the door open and stumbled into the hallway, right into the arms of security personnel. Growlithe formed a half-circle around the door, their teeth bared and their fur standing on end. Behind them, nine security officers gathered. Bill couldn’t see any of their faces. All of them wore padded, black suits and black helmets with reflective visors. But frankly, Bill wasn’t that interested in seeing what they looked like. He couldn’t be, after all, considering that the nine stun guns they pointed directly at him drew his attention away from their uniforms, save for the initial cursory glance. Their padded, gloved fingers moved over the guns’ triggers, and right then, Bill could hear nine soft clicks under the howl of the siren. Any second, it would be followed by a snap, and if Bill didn’t act soon, that snap would be followed by the hum of electricity—directly into his body.

Now, he decided, was the best time to pray that his plan worked.

“Stop!” he shouted as he raised his hands. “Don’t shoot! I’m not going to hurt you!”

They hesitated. A few even stepped back slightly. The guns, however, were still trained on Bill. Slowly, carefully so as not to make any sudden movement, he lowered his hands halfway.

“Listen,” he said. “If it’s me you’re looking for, then I need to know what’s going on. I want to speak with anyone who can answer a few questions I have in mind. Can you get me in contact with Professor Oak?”

For a long moment, none of them moved. They simply stood, guns trained on Bill. He sighed and let his hands fall to his sides.

“Please.” He shook his head. “If it would help, my name is Bill McKenzie. I’m a member of the behavioral team. My ID number is—”

One of the guards holstered her gun and turned away. She pulled a small cellphone from her belt and lifted it to her visor, and her thumb pressed two buttons on its face. Holding it inches from her helmet, she spoke loudly into the receiver.

“Sir? We’ve located Adam in Sector 3 East. But there’s a problem. He wants to speak with you.”

The guard pressed a button on the side of the phone and waited. After a few seconds, a voice boomed from the phone.

“Speak with me?” Professor Oak responded. “What’s this about?”

Pressing the button again, the guard replied, “You’d better hear for yourself.” Then, turning the phone towards Bill, she nodded. “Go on. But don’t you dare try anything. You’ve still got eight stunners on you, understand?”

Bill nodded and stepped forward. Just one step. All of the guns trained on him clicked again as a warning against another. He swallowed hard and stared at the phone and knew that one wrong word would mean his next move would be falling on the floor, writhing in pain.

“Hello?” Professor Oak called.

“Professor,” Bill replied. “It’s me.”

“Me …? Good gods! Bill?!”

Bill couldn’t help but smile. This was the first good thing that had happened since he awoke in that laboratory—or, possibly, even the first good thing that had happened since he arrived at Polaris. With a deep breath, he nodded, even though Oak couldn’t see the gesture.

“Yes. This is Bill, Professor Oak. It’s … it’s great to hear from you.”

“The same could be said about you,” Oak replied. “Are you all right?”

Bill eyed the guards and flashing emergency lights skeptically. “All things considered, yes.”

“Oh! Right! Hold on.”

The line went quiet for nearly half a minute until the sirens and lights stopped abruptly. In their place, there was a thick silence and the fluorescence of the hallway’s normal lighting. Bill flinched at the brightness and the quiet. All around him, he heard the clicking of the guns, and when he opened his eyes, he saw eight of the nine guards stand back, holding the stun guns to their chests. The growlithe at their feet calmed considerably, padding backwards until they sat beside their human companions. Not a single one of them looked visibly relaxed, however. Just not aggressive.

“Ah! There we go! Sorry,” Oak said. “Now then. Let’s get back to business. Bill, how are you _feeling_?”

“A-all right, I suppose,” Bill responded. “Professor, what exactly is going on?”

“Hmm. Bill? You aren’t hearing any voices, are you?”

Bill turned back to the phone. “What?!”

_I think he means me,_ the parasite responded quickly.

“Oh.” Bill grinned awkwardly. “That’s nothing to worry about. He’s a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Well … yes. I suppose you could call him that,” Bill replied. “He and I have an agreement.”

“An agreement?”

“It’s difficult to explain, but the simplest way would be to say he’s given me my body in exchange for information. You’re still speaking to me, and you will be in the foreseeable future, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

There was a long pause. And as the moments ticked by in silence, Bill began to realize something was terribly wrong.

“Professor?” he asked.

“Bill,” Oak responded, “I need to tell you everything that’s happened. In person.”

Horribly wrong. Bill almost cringed at how wrong this was. Why was Oak’s tone so grave? Why was he asking about the parasite? Why were there nine armed guards and no fewer than ten trained guard growlithe surrounding him?

“The sooner the better,” Bill answered.

“Good,” Oak said. “In the meantime, I want you to stay as calm as possible, and if you feel any different than you are right now, fight it.”

What? Bill stared at the phone, stunned. What was Oak talking about? Feel any different? Fight it? Fight what?

That small needle of panic Bill felt earlier was emerging again, and he shuddered slightly.

“Okay,” he finally said.

“Good. Professor Nettle should be arriving any moment now. She’ll escort you to where I’ll meet you. See you soon, Bill.”

With that, the guard snapped the phone closed. Bill stood awkwardly, staring at the device in her hand as he went over what Oak had just told him a second ago. His eyes shifted downward, and he desperately wanted to speak with the parasite but knew that doing so would risk being stunned down.

_Do not concern yourself with that,_ it told him. _I can hear you just fine. And no, your friend’s concerns do not apply to us, although they most certainly apply to others that are of my kind._

Bill twitched. His mind honed in on another question to ask, one he carefully composed in his head with the hopes that the creature inside him would read it. But before he could finish, the clacking of formal shoes on the floor broke his concentration. Glancing up, he saw the guards part to allow Professor Nettle through. Her hazel eyes glared icily at Bill for a long while.

“Professor Nettle,” Bill breathed. “It’s good to see you. Professor Oak told me that you—”

He stopped short when she stepped aside to reveal a jynx standing behind her. One of Nettle’s hands rose in the air, her thin fingers flashing in a snap. In response, the jynx moaned and waltzed forward with her lips puckered and her eyes narrowing.

“What’s this?” Bill demanded, shuffling backwards.

The barrel of one of the stun guns pressed against his back, keeping him from going any further. In front of him, the jynx stopped as her lips took on a pink glow. She raised a hand to her face and kissed her fingers lightly, and as she drew them away, the pink light pulled out of her skin and flashed into the shape of a pink heart. The jynx swept her hands outwards, shooting the heart directly at Bill. In the ensuing seconds, Bill realized he was too close, too slow to dodge. He could only shout in surprise just before the pink light hit him directly in the face and splashed across his skin with a warm, humid blast. A tingling sensation rushed through his body, and all of a sudden, he felt heavy and tired. He dropped to one knee, and as he pressed his hands to the floor, he fought against the urge to sleep with everything he had.

But already, he knew he was going to lose.

“Lovely Kiss,” Bill gasped. “Why …?”

“We were going to use Anderson,” Nettle explained simply, “but you surprised us when you awoke and escaped from Laboratory G on your own. It’s strange that you can think clearly as well. Our benefactor would be most interested in these developments, and your escape would provide a convenient cover. You lost control and had to be put down messily. Quite convenient.”

Bill sank a little lower. It was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

“I don’t understand.”

Nettle strode forward and petted her jynx. “You don’t need to understand. Just know that you’re being donated to a worthy cause.”

“Worthy … no.”

With that, Bill slumped over sideways. His last vision was that of the guards stooping down to place small, metal balls in a square around his body. And then, he shut his eyes and gave in to sleep.

And in that last second of darkness, he heard the parasite. 

_Now would be a good time for that alternate plan, Bill._


	7. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill walks away from an explosion.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 1_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: DOSSIER_  
 _DESIGNATION: D.E.V.A. PERSONNEL CODEX ENTRY #234250_  
 _DESCRIPTION: TEAM ROCKET—ESSENTIAL INFORMATION, LATEST UPDATE  
_ _DATE-TIME: 24/09/00, 10:14_

_TEAM ROCKET: Underground criminal organization focusing primarily on the theft and illegal redistribution of pokémon. Other known activities range from fraud, drug-trafficking, and racketeering to unethical experimentation, unauthorized weapons productions, and large-scale hostage taking. International Police has consequently ranked Team Rocket as the most dangerous criminal organization still in existence. Capture and dissolution of Team Rocket is, to them, top priority._

_HISTORY: Formally founded in 1931 as part of the resolution to the Unovan Gang Wars by Salvatore di Razzo. Sometime during World War II, di Razzo expanded his empire to Japan and relocated his base of operations from Castelia City, Unova, to Viridian City, Kanto. Following the unsolved deaths of both di Razzo and his only son Paolo, control over the Team Rocket empire passed to di Razzo’s daughter-in-law and former underboss, Adriana di Razzo, née Gambino. She established the groundwork for Team Rocket’s current reputation via the pursuit of several “legendary pokémon” (confirmed to be six documented Special Entities). Her death resulted in the succession of her son, Giovanni di Razzo, who pushed forward with the goal of global domination via capture and control of pokémon._

_LEADER: Giovanni di Razzo, Viridian Gym Leader, chief benefactor of Pokémon Laboratories, and stockholder for the Silph Company._

_STRUCTURE:_  
 _\- Boss_  
 _\- Consigliere (position currently held by Matori Yamaguchi)_  
 _\- Executives, led by an underboss (position currently held by Arthur “Archer” Redstone)_  
 _\- Elite Officer_  
 _\- High-Rank Officer_  
 _\- Field Agent_  
 _\- Grunt  
_ _* The role of scientist within the organization appears to be its own rank, independent from the above structure. Those who are members of the scientist rank can hold equal power to any position from elite officer downwards, depending on the number of years spent in the organization and the individual’s role in a specific operation._

_RELEVANCE TO D.E.V.A.: Team Rocket is responsible for the creation of SE-004 and the capture and misuse of several other Special Entities. Apprehension and punishment of Team Rocket members for their involvement in organized crime is none of D.E.V.A.’s concern. However, Rocket interference with the containment and indexing of Special Entities must be dealt with accordingly. Permission to use extreme force granted._

_See also YELED PROTOCOL._

* * *

 

The first thing that Bill noticed when he woke up was that his entire body ached, as if he had slept on a hard floor for the past several hours. And, looking at the metal sprawling outwards across his field of vision, he realized that was a very likely possibility. 

With a groan, he sat up and pressed a hand to his face. Instantly, he jolted in his seat and pulled his arm back to examine his fingers. He flexed his claws, listening once again to the clacking each movement made.

“Oh,” he breathed. “I was hoping that was a dream.”

_Unfortunately,_ _I assure you it was not._

Bill flinched and glanced towards the ceiling. “Ah. You.”

_If it is all the same to you,_ the parasite replied. _I prefer not to be referred to as “you.”_

Carefully, Bill stood and pressed a hand to his head again. “Well, I don’t have anything else to call you. Didn’t you say that your species doesn’t bother with names?”

_No. I said that we did not hold names in high regard._

“So you have a name.”

_I did not say that either._

Bill sighed heavily.

_In any case, you should not lie to me. That is not the reason why you referred to me the way you did. You respect pokémon. You even care enough about them to refer to them by their correct gender. If an abra preferred to be called by its species name, you would do so out of respect, not because it is convenient for you._

In response, Bill flinched for a second time. Abra. There was a reason why the parasite chose that pokémon. An abra was attached to Bill’s childhood, after all. One of them was the first pokémon Bill ever captured, and the evolved form of that particular one was now guarding his home in his absence. Bill had no doubt the ixodida could pick up on the memories and emotions he associated with that particular psychic—possibly even the remnants of the link between them. Despite that certainty, Bill did his best to avoid reacting to the alien’s words, even if he knew it could read his every thought. It was petty, but Bill felt he could do without giving the parasite the satisfaction of a response.

_Strange that you would refer to me as a friend yet treat me as a contemptible pest. Are you afraid of me?_

“No. What did you expect?” Bill replied as calmly as he could. “You completely altered my body without my permission. I’m only in a relationship with you because I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

_You would have died if I did not act as I had. The transformation itself is irreversible and difficult; we have established that. But even if we did not consider that, in my independent form, I can neither see my environment nor discern between one potential host and another. You must understand this, Bill. I chose you, and I am sorry to hear that this is not pleasant for you to come to terms with. But this is your reality now, and no amount of protest on your part will change it._

Bill crossed his arms and closed his eyes again. He exhaled slowly, letting the words sink in. Each one stung, but he knew the creature had a point. Even if there was a way to change him back, right then, that wasn’t an option within his reach. He was stuck in that body with that creature in his head, and he just had to deal with that for now.

“All right,” he finally said, his voice soft. “What do you want me to call you?”

_Your kind calls mine the ixodida._

“Isn’t that a bit strange?” Bill asked as he opened his eyes again. “I can’t simply call you by your species name. You sound too human.”

_That did not stop you from referring to your psychic pokémon by their species names. Kadabra, for example?_

“Stop bringing him up,” Bill hissed. “That’s a different story anyway.”

_Very well. Then your kind has also referred to me as Adam._

“Fantastic. Adam. I can call you that.”

_Strange, is it not? The meaning of it. Adam, an ancient name—the oldest, according to some humans._

“Please. Just stop talking.”

Desperate to drown out his partner, Bill glanced around the room, taking in the sight of it for the first time. Yet there wasn’t much to see. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all undecorated metal surfaces, and the sides of the room arched up to shape the space into a long half-tube. Several yards away, a large door spanned the back wall. On the other end of the room, set in the opposite wall, was a standard-sized door with a heavy, silver handle attached to it. Nothing else existed in this space except the box.

The box being, of course, the one that Bill stood inside. His breath caught slightly as he finally took it in. The room wasn’t even lit properly; all of the light ebbed from the flat, blue, translucent walls of the box. Bill walked forward, across four feet of the cube’s floor, until he reached the barrier closest to the smaller of the two doors. Gingerly, he reached up and touched the surface of the barrier, only to hear it crackle beneath his touch. He jumped back in surprise and blinked at it for a few seconds before reaching forward again.

It felt smooth and warm … yet also barely tangible. When Bill pressed into it with his entire body, it refused to yield, but it felt less like he was pressing against a solid surface and more like the box was repelling him back into its interior. No matter how hard he pressed or how much force he applied, it would nudge him backwards. With a deep breath, he stood back, planting one hand on the barrier for stability. He curled his other hand into a fist and launched into the barrier, but as soon as the punch connected, the wall bounced his arm backwards, nearly throwing Bill onto the floor. Shaking off the shock, Bill took a few steps backwards and threw himself completely into the barrier with as much force as he could muster.

The ricochet shot him into the upper portion of the opposite wall, which repelled him directly into the floor in the center of the box. He whimpered and slowly sat up.

_Are you quite done?_

Bill was about to shoot a response when the door in front of him swung open. Strips of light on either side of the room flared to life, and as Bill winced in temporary blindness, he heard boots thud into the room.

“What’s going on in here?” a voice demanded.

Standing, Bill glanced up to see the last person he had hoped would be behind that door: the purple-eyed girl. A shiver went down his spine as he instantly recalled seeing her face swimming above him in his last moments as a human. She looked different now—more mature as she sauntered into the room. Of course, part of that might have had to do with the fact that she was, at that moment, dressed in a black Team Rocket uniform.

“You!” Bill gasped.

She smiled, but unlike the way she did in Laboratory F, there was no pretense. It was all venom as she narrowed her eyes and flashed as much of her teeth as she could.

“Glad to see you’re finally awake,” she purred. “I could use some entertainment. It’s been a boring flight.”

“Flight?” Bill furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean ‘flight’?”

“Oh, don’t you know?” she replied casually. “You’re on an aircraft bound for Chrono Island. We have a laboratory there that you’ll feel right at home in.”

So. He was captured by Team Rocket. Bill fought every urge to panic. Instead, he strode forward and placed a hand on the wall of the box again. Flying. They were flying from Cinnabar Island to Chrono Island in the Sevii Archipelago. His mind honed in on that for the sake of his sanity. They were flying to the Sevii Islands. Chrono Island was a ferry ride from Knot Island, and besides that, they would have to pass over Knot to get to Chrono. One way or another, it was a way out. If Bill could just get away from Team Rocket, he could contact Celio on Knot Island and hide until he could figure out a way to change back.

But he needed an escape plan. And before he could set one in motion, he needed to distract this girl.

“Adam,” he mumbled.

_I am always listening._

“Nothing to say?” the girl continued. “I can’t blame you. Don’t worry. You’ll be in the care of our scientists in no time.”

“What do you want from me?” Bill growled.

“Um, hello?” The girl put her hands on her hips. “What _don’t_ we want from you? You represent the final stage of ixodida infection, _and_ you’re one of the most skilled inventors we can get our hands on. Didn’t I tell you earlier? If you survived the transformation with your sanity intact, we’d find a way to make you useful.”

Bill balled his hands into fists and rested them on the barrier. “I thought you were explicitly ordered not to touch me.”

“Well, yeah, but you keep on running into us,” she replied. “It’s really inconvenient, you know. It’s like you’re begging us to mess with you. Can anyone really blame us, then? It’s your fault you got into this mess.” 

He glared at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” she responded. “Your fault, your mess. We just accidentally picked you up along the way.”

“Let me go,” he growled. “Let me go this instant!”

Smiling again, she crossed her arms. “You’re in no position to make demands. You see this?” She paused to point at the box. “It’s an eight-point force field cage designed by own technological genius, Dr. Zager. It’s sleek, stylish, and completely impenetrable. Isn’t our technology off the hook? As an inventor, I’m sure you can see how ridiculously cool this is.”

Bill growled—actually growled, with his voice rumbling in his throat and his lips curling back to reveal his fangs. The woman didn’t seem fazed by it, however, as she stared down the creature in the box with a smirk.

And then, the sound of a telephone ringing filled the room. Bill abruptly stopped growling, and the woman’s expression wavered. He took his eyes off her, glancing around the otherwise empty room for the source of the ringing until she sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

“Ugh. They always call at the absolute worst times,” she muttered.

He fixed his gaze on her again. “What?”

She reached under her white cap and pulled from it a black cellphone. Holding it up, she motioned quickly and indifferently at it. Its display was lit, and it vibrated each time it rung in her hand.

“Mind if I take this?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Oh, no, please.”

Flipping open the phone, the woman turned away from him and sighed for a second time. “Hello?”

As the officer’s conversation continued, Bill glanced around the box again. He needed a plan, and this was as good a time as any to figure things out. The box had no door, no opening that he could force open. Then how did he end up inside it? His eyes followed the seams of the box, tracing back to one of the corners until he finally found the answer.

There, at one of the corners, sat a small metal sphere. Bill traced another seam leading away from the sphere until found another one floating seven feet above it. In fact, as he turned and glanced at each corner of the box, there were eight spheres in total: four sitting on the floor in an eight-foot square around his feet and four floating directly above the first set. Stooping down, he reached out and tapped one of the orbs. It sparked and fizzled, causing Bill to recoil and draw his claw to his mouth with a hiss. Hot. Very hot. But they were independent devices; that much Bill could tell at a glance.

Drawing himself to his full height, Bill flexed his claws and stared at the ball he tapped.

Eventually, the parasite’s voice floated into his mind. _So. What is your plan?_

Bill shifted his gaze to the ceiling and kept his voice as low as he could make it. “I think it’s possible to break this barrier. We’ll need to short-circuit the devices holding it together. Even attacking just one will compromise the integrity of the force field long enough for us to escape.”

_I see. You are hesitating, though. Why?_

“The powers you’ve given me already won’t be enough,” he replied. “Protect is a defensive move. While I can use it to ensure that the force field won’t close on us as I pass through, it doesn’t have any use in disrupting the barrier. Scratch will only work if the angle and the amount of power I use are perfectly synced, and even then, I’m afraid it’s running too hot to touch. Are there any other abilities you can give me?”

_I am afraid not. Your learning must not progress in that manner. You must discover your full potential by mastering the abilities you already possess. Otherwise, you risk injuring yourself in your attempts to use any power more advanced than what I have already given you._

“While I understand that, this is a bit important,” Bill whispered harshly. “How else will we be able to escape?”

_There is one other option, but you will not like it._

“Whether or not I’d like it is rather irrelevant right now. Our priority is getting away from Team Rocket. I don’t care how.”

_You will really not like this option._

“They fused me with you and trapped us in a box. Do you really want to see what else they’ll do?”

“Hey! Who are you talking to?!” The Rocket huffed in frustration and then spoke into the phone. “I might have to defuse a situation here. Let me call you back when I have something to report.”

Without waiting for a response, the woman snapped her cellphone closed and glared at Bill.

“All right. What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “You’re not planning something, are you?”

_Once I go through with this option, you cannot stop me from finishing. Do you understand that, Bill?_

“Yes!” he hissed.

_Then do you give me permission to do whatever I must to protect you?_

“What?”

The woman pulled a tulip from her left glove and, with a flick of her wrist, telescoped its stem into a baton. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

_You do not have much time. I need your explicit permission._

Bill backed away from the wall as the woman advanced. Eventually, he stood at the center of the box once more. His eyes fell on the tulip, just in time to watch the blossom crackle with sparks of electricity.

“Yes!” Bill answered. “Okay! Just do it!”

_Very good._

At once, Bill sensed himself being pulled backwards. He could still see through his eyes, but he felt like they weren’t his. In fact, it felt like every muscle in his face relaxed and detached from his mind, and that disconnection quickly spread to the rest of his form.

And then, his body moved without him.

The Rocket stopped. Her arms fell to her sides as she stared into the box.

“What the hell?” she muttered. Then, she swung the baton upwards and crouched behind it. “Don’t you dare ...!”

Bill’s hands moved out to his sides. Inside his head, Bill sat as he watched himself sweep his hands backwards and hold them a short distance apart. His entire body began to glow with a golden light, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see a bright, blue orb of plasma begin to swirl between his palms.

“Don’t I dare what?” his body asked.

The woman’s stance lowered, and her fist gripped the baton tighter.

Bill watched his vision shift. His chin rose slightly, and the golden light intensified until it filled the box. All around him, the barriers began to flicker as sparks flew from the spheres in each of the cage’s corners.

“Tell me,” Adam said. “I have a great interest in names. What is yours? What is your purpose?”

For a moment, Bill thought she wouldn’t respond. He had no reason to believe she would; after all, why would she in this situation? But then, she began to smirk.

“I’m known by many names,” she said. “To my allies, I’m known as Agent 009, the Black Tulip, a member of Team Rocket’s elite espionage unit. But you may call me Domino.”

Adam looked down at her. “That is not your real name. Such a shame. I was hoping you would be a worthy, honest opponent.”

The golden light grew in intensity until it was all Bill could see. In his head, he could feel something wrap around him. Something warm. Something … almost comforting.

_Bill. You are going to sleep now. But do not worry. When you awaken, you will be somewhere safe._

Unlike the last few times Bill was about to be knocked unconscious, it wasn’t a lengthy fight. It wasn’t a matter of Bill resisting his physical urges in order to stay awake. It was more like an injection of novocain directly into his brain. One moment, he was awake, and the next, he fell into a deep, dark sleep.

The last thing he heard was an explosion.


	8. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill unlocks a power within himself. It doesn't really help all that much.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 1_ _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: AUDIO/VIDEO TRANSCRIPT_  
 _DESIGNATION: THE ADAM INCIDENT—SUPPLEMENT A: “THE RAYE TAPES,” FILE 01_  
 _DESCRIPTION: VIDEO AND ACCOMPANYING TRANSCRIPT RECORDED BY WILLIAM (“BILL”) MCKENZIE, ADDRESSED TO AND SENT VIA THE STORAGE SYSTEM COMMUNICATION LINE TO RACHEL (“RAYE”) MCKENZIE. BOTH INDIVIDUALS ARE KNOWN TO BE CLOSELY INVOLVED IN THE ADAM INCIDENT._  
 _DATE-TIME: 06/06/01, 16:30 (ORIGINAL FILMING)_

_[SHOT OF THE INTERIOR OF A LABORATORY IDENTIFIED AS THE BOTTOM LEVEL OF THE SEA COTTAGE INSTITUTE. BILL SITS IN A CHAIR IN THE FOREGROUND, APPARENTLY FILMING VIA A WEBCAM.]_

_BILL_  
 _Hello, Raye. It’s Nii-chan. Ah, I just want to say that I’m terribly sorry that I won’t be there for your birthday. I know it’s your last one at home for awhile, so I hope that someday, I can make it up to you._

_[HE PAUSES AND TAPS ONE OF HIS TEMPLES WITH A FINGER.]_

_BILL  
 _It’s your tenth birthday. Blazes, I remember the day you were born. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago._ _

_[HE SHAKES HIS HEAD AND WAVES A HAND IN THE AIR.]_

_BILL_  
 _Anyway, you’re setting off on your own journey the day after tomorrow, so I want to take the time to give you a few words of advice._

_[ANOTHER PAUSE. HE CLASPS HIS HANDS TOGETHER.]_

_BILL  
 _First of all, Pokémon journeys aren’t just about earning badges or ribbons. They’re about finding yourself, learning as much as you can about the world, and meeting new friends. If you’re ever unsure of yourself, just remember that this is the time of your life when you figure out who you’re meant to be—or at least start on the path towards learning that. It’s okay to make mistakes. Just be careful. We’re all cheering for you._ _

_[HE HOLDS UP TWO FINGERS.]_

_BILL_  
 _Second, if you ever need anything—anything at all—don’t hesitate to call me. You’re my sister, Raye, so no matter what, I will do everything I can to help you._

_[HE PAUSES. HIS EXPRESSION TWISTS INTO ONE OF MOMENTARY CONFUSION. THEN, HE RELAXES.]_

_BILL_  
 _Well. Besides not being able to see you off. Anyway, third, remember that you should never talk to strange trainers, and if one of them bothers you, don’t forget that you can rely on your pokémon._

_[ANOTHER PAUSE.]_

_BILL_  
 _Don’t … don’t ask Christa what that means. Ask Mum. In any case, Mum tells me that you’re interested in the Hoenn contest circuit. That’s great! If a contest is ever held in Fallarbor Town, Lanette said she has a birthday present she would love to give you in person. But don’t worry if you never journey there. Lanette and I have other ways we could send it; she’s just interested in meeting you._

_[ONE LAST PAUSE.]_

_BILL_  
 _Oh wait. That gave away the surprise. Ah! Anyway! Raye, have a happy birthday, and good luck on your journey. I … [HE HESITATES.] I’ll be seeing you._

_[END VIDEO.]_

* * *

“You _lost_ him?!”

Even over the roar of her jetpack, Domino could hear the coldness of Nettle’s voice. She flinched and wished she could yank her earpiece off and throw it into the ocean below her.

“I didn’t lose him. I know exactly where he is,” she replied. “The tracking device is still working, and it’s showing that he’s headed straight for Hoenn. So long as he doesn’t tamper with it, I should be able to locate him easily.”

“You are dealing with the foremost researcher in pokémon technology,” Nettle snapped. “Of course his next step will be to tamper with the collar! And what’s worse, he’s heading straight for the home region of the _second_ foremost researcher in pokémon technology! Pray that he doesn’t contact Professor Chastain, or I will personally hand in a full report of your incompetence to our benefactor himself!”

Domino flinched for a second time. “Relax, okay?! I know what I’m doing, and he won’t get far. He put up a fight just before he escaped. I think I injured him enough to slow him down.”

“You injured him and let him escape to a region infested with wild ixodida?! Are you insane?!”

She pulled the throttle on her jetpack and swooped down several hundred feet. The wind whipped past her violently, and she narrowed her eyes straight ahead.

“Like I could control where he goes,” Domino hissed. “I don’t think he was even in control when he broke out.”

There was a beat of silence. When Nettle replied, her voice was low, almost inaudible over the noise of the wind and jetpack engine.

“What are you talking about?”

“It was the parasite,” Domino responded. “Just like Pandora. I was talking to someone else at the end.”

“How do you know?”

Domino frowned. Her mind flicked back to the monster, the way it stared at her with blank eyes from within a golden ball of light. She remembered the way the barrier exploded at its touch and the way it stalked towards her. And she remembered the way it screeched, the way its voice sounded less like Bill’s and more like the scream of an animal. She couldn’t describe it, but everything about it was alien, inhuman. All she could remember was jamming her electrified tulip into its torso just before it threw her into a wall.

It happened so quickly, as if it wasn’t even fazed by electrocution.

“Agent 009, answer me.”

Domino shook her head. “I-I just know, okay?”

Nettle sighed. “Yes, well, find him and bring him back. Our superior will have your head if he finds out you violated the Yeled Protocol for nothing.”

“That _I_ violated the Yeled Protocol?!” Domino yelped.

“Yes. Our benefactor has already agreed that only you and your subordinates will be held responsible if D.E.V.A. reacts. Find him.”

The call ended with a click, leaving Domino to fly forward in silence. Suddenly, she felt cold all over, and she knew it wasn’t just from the wind.

* * *

Warm.

It was warm. Almost too warm.

Bill winced and opened one eye to a pink sky. Dark rose clouds hung above him and rolled across his vision. Turning his head, he saw an expanse of black ground, ending several feet to his side in a concrete parapet. Beyond it, he could see the last orange rays of daylight.

“Is this … another dream?” he whispered.

With some effort, he sat up. Suddenly, a burning sensation rushed across his body, followed immediately by a pins-and-needles pain radiating from his left arm. He cried out and doubled over, clutching his shoulder. A spark launched itself from his skin and fizzled into the air, and he winced as he struggled to flex his fingers.

“Paralysis? How did I ...”

He stopped short. The hazy memory of the girl with drill tails surfaced in his mind. Or, more specifically, it was her tulip baton that he recalled.

“Oh. What happened?”

Bill struggled to stand. As he rose, another hot pain seared across his body, and he winced in response. Once the seize subsided, he peered out across the black expanse through narrow eyes, and in the distance, he found rooftops. The rough material under his feet finally had a name: tarpaper. This was a rooftop, and he was in some kind of town.

But where?

He fought to remember what happened, but his mind drew a blank. The last thing he could recall was being locked in that cage of light guarded by the girl with drill-tail hair. This place, meanwhile …

His feet dragged as he moved towards the parapet. The town itself wasn’t that large, consisting of what looked like several low buildings and a handful of skyscrapers surrounded by trees. In the far distance, on the horizon in every direction, Bill caught sight of the jagged edges of mountains. One of them rose higher than the others and puffed plumes of dark clouds into the evening air.

Right then, Bill was certain of two things. First, this wasn’t the Team Rocket aircraft. Second, there was something familiar about this place. Something about it—about the way the mountains outlined the horizon and the layout of the buildings—nagged at Bill’s memory, but he couldn’t figure out what. He simply knew that he had been there before. He just couldn’t pinpoint the name of this place.

Not that that was his first priority anyway. No matter how hard he tried to remember the name of this place, the more it surfaced in his head that he couldn’t remember how he got there. Something about that entire situation was incredibly wrong, and that something centered on the blank in his memory.

And then he realized it was quiet. So very quiet. When that realization settled in, Bill peered over the edge of the building he stood on. Beneath him, he could see the sign for a pokémon center, unlit, unlike the signs for every other center he was used to. What’s more, there were people below, but they weren’t ordinary trainers. They walked the streets as if they were patrolling it, not simply strolling. At their feet, pokémon—mostly dog-like ones—padded quietly as their heads bobbed and waved. These humans were hunting for something, that Bill knew. But what? He squinted and leaned over the barrier a little more in an attempt to pick up another clue—any other clue that would explain what he was seeing.

Instead, he noticed the last piece of this puzzle.

Weapons. Every single human was carrying a weapon of some kind. Some carried rifles. Others held pistols in both hands. Still others carried bats or metal pipes. In short, there were no people laughing or carrying on about normal business. There weren’t even children or normal trainers. Everyone was an adult, everyone was armed, and everyone was just about ready to kill something.

And the fact that Bill had no idea what they were hunting left a dizzyingly uneasy feeling in his chest.

He slipped onto his stomach behind the parapet, pressing as much of his body into the tarpaper as possible. A hiss of pain escaped his mouth from the heat of the roof, but he did his best to shake it off as he pulled himself up just enough to peer over the edge again.

“What is this place?” he muttered. “Adam, what happened? How did we get here?”

A long, drawn-out silence answered him.

“Adam?”

Another silence. Bill’s breath quickened again as he turned himself over and stared at the jewel in his chest. A red light pulsed from within it in time with his heartbeat.

“Adam? Adam, are you there?!”

The parasite’s voice echoed faintly in his brain, as if its words were whispered from at the end of a long, empty hallway.

_Cannot. Exhausted._

“What?” Bill squeaked. “What do you mean? Adam, what’s wrong?”

_Escape. Drained. Girl fought back. Need time to recover._

“Escape … drained?” Bill pushed himself downward until he lay flat on his back. “Do you mean to say that girl fought us on our way out? Is that why …?” He groaned. Suddenly, the pins-and-needles sensation he felt in his arm made sense. “She electrocuted us. Of course.”

_Yes._

Bill closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. In the pause, he tried again to flex his fingers. The time he spent scrambling across the roof at least gave him a few moments to recover, and although the uncomfortable sensation in his arm still lingered, he was at least able to move his fingers into a fist. That, at the very least, was a good sign, but if he hoped for a full recovery, he knew he would probably have to arrange for proper care. Luckily, he was on the roof of a pokémon center. Unluckily, he shuddered at the thought of climbing down and asking the armed militia on the street for help, especially in his state.

But then again, there was more than one way to get off a roof. Opening his eyes once more, Bill lifted his head and scanned the rooftop again. Every roof had entrances. That was something he had learned years ago, from years of playing hookey in the urban ocean that was Goldenrod City. Pokémon centers, like all hospitals and businesses, had air conditioning, and with air conditioning came air intake and exhaust pipes. They had kitchens, which meant vents. Every roof had maintenance doors, and sometimes, fire escapes went far enough up that climbing to street level would be a matter of a short jump one story down. Not to mention that there were hundreds of other possible circumstances—a building close enough to make jumping back and forth between walls possible, footholds down the side, debris to provide a soft landing. Bill knew he had options, but luckily, this roof wouldn’t require a solution that extreme. Straight ahead, he found exactly what he needed: the maintenance door.

A sense of relief washed over him as he squirmed until he was back on his stomach. He crawled a few feet away from the parapet until he was sure he wouldn’t be seen by even the keenest observer on the street. Then, he drew himself up into a sitting position with his hands on the tarpaper and his eyes on the door just a short distance away.

“Adam, are you there?”

Silence.

“Adam?”

_Must rest. Cannot._

Bill set his jaw. “Fine. We’ll talk shortly.”

With that, he sprang forward and darted to the door, claws skittering across tarpaper as he went. When he reached the entrance, he swung his good arm outward, grasped the handle, and briefly prayed that it wasn’t locked. The rest of his body weight followed, leaning down on the handle until it turned with a loud click. He froze, listening carefully for signs of activity from the street. After a half a minute of complete silence, he pulled the handle, and with a groan of protest, the door swung open to reveal an empty staircase inside. Without thinking twice, Bill ducked into the building, shut the door, and leaned against its metal surface with a sigh of relief.

“All right,” he whispered. “We’re safe for now.”

The only thing he heard in the ensuing seconds was the hum of the stairwell’s lights. One of his hands drifted up to the jewel in his chest as his eyes cast down on it.

“Adam?”

_Let me rest._

“You can’t be that exhausted. I feel fine.”

_Not linked._

“Not linked?” Bill raised an eyebrow. “What isn’t linked?”

_Life force._

“What? What are you on about?”

_Energy. Attack energy. Not linked._

Bill moved his hand over his stomach to give himself a clear view of the jewel. “Do you mean to tell me that you have a separate reserve of energy that you use for battles and that it’s entirely possible for you to exhaust yourself before my body is exhausted?”

_Yes._

“Then what exactly is the point of you living inside me if you can’t take advantage of my state?”

_Not a parasite._

Bill sighed heavily and pushed off the door. “Ask a silly question.”

His hand reached the metal banister and ran along its surface. Even the act of walking down stairs felt alien to him, with his tail swaying behind him, his feet spreading on each stair, and the paint on the banister chipping off against his hand. He tried not to focus on how strange he felt, opting instead to sift through what he knew of his current situation. It just wasn’t an easy task, given how much the sensation of himself in motion threatened to distract him.

“Adam,” he finally said, looking for anything else to focus on.

_Let. Me. Sleep._

“Not until you tell me where we are.”

Adam responded, but it wasn’t in a language Bill knew. He froze on the stairs as his mind wrapped around the word. It was an image, actually. A swirling image that his brain somehow resolved into a question mark, even though he knew it looked nothing like one.

“What does that mean?” he asked. “You don’t know?”

_Yes._

“You don’t know.” Bill sighed again and continued down the stairs. “Fantastic.”

_Hive._

He stopped again and threw a glance to the side. “Hive?”

No response.

“Adam, what do you mean by ‘hive’?”

_Sleep._

“What? Wait, Adam! What are you talking about?”

_Need sleep._

“The hive. Is that your way of saying that you need sleep?”

_No. Sleeping now. Bill. On your own._

“What?! Wait! Adam, I’m not done talking to you! What am I supposed to do while you’re asleep?”

_Survive._

“That’s hardly amusing! Adam, I don’t know anything about—Adam? Adam! Are you still there?!”

Silence, save for the hum of the lights. Bill gripped the banister harder. His hand and the metal of the pole rang together, and the sound echoed off the brick walls for a few brief seconds. Then, he relaxed.

“So. I’m on my own now. That’s … that’s fine.” He cast his eyes towards the ceiling. “This is a pokémon center. I couldn’t be safer anywhere else.”

He was practically lying to himself, but it at least reassured him enough to walk the rest of the way down the stairs and to the door at their landing. It occurred to him then that he had no idea what he would say to the Nurse Joy on the other side, and he hesitated for a second to compose an explanation.

Of course, finding no suitable explanation whatsoever, Bill pushed open the door and hoped for the best.

Luckily, what he found on the other side was absolutely nothing. Or, rather, it was an empty hall very close to an open doorway leading to the lobby. Taking a deep breath, Bill moved swiftly from the stairway to the hallway to the lobby, but even there, the place was empty. He stopped, standing beside a bank of video phones and PCs, to sweep his eyes across the room.

It was like many other pokémon centers he was used to seeing. There was a front desk set up near the back of the room, behind which was the doorway leading to the medical wings. A dining area full of chairs and tables occupied one half of the room, while couches and coffee tables strewn with magazines occupied the other. The furniture looked as if it hadn’t been used in some time; some of the tables were covered in layers of dust, while the magazines’ covers featured last year’s news. Padding forward, Bill kept his eyes locked on the desk and the door behind it. He expected that Nurse Joy or her chansey would appear at any moment, but neither did. Not even a sound came from the medical wings. It was, in a word, _empty_.

“Hello?” Bill called. “Excuse me! Nurse Joy? I’m in need of assistance!”

Another silence answered him.

“I’m getting quite tired of talking to myself,” Bill murmured as he raised his eyes to the ceiling again.

Shaking his head, he turned away from the desk and looked towards the video phones. He realized he could call someone, but until he knew where he was, he wasn’t sure how much help he would be able to garner. His eyes trailed to the walls, searching for poster advertisements of the league, bookshelves with atlases, anything that might offer clues. What he found was something better: a map, hanging in a frame on the wall right next to the door through which he entered. Straightening his back, he moved quickly to it and peered at its face.

And then, his breath caught when he realized at once what region it depicted.

“Hoenn,” he gasped. “I’m in _Hoenn_.”

Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead into the glass of the frame.

“Of all the places I could have ended up, I managed to reach _Hoenn_.” He shut his eyes tightly. “Please tell me that this is not what you meant by ‘hive,’ Adam.”

Naturally, the parasite didn’t answer. Instead, Bill pulled himself away from the frame and peered at the image again. A small dot was pasted over one city, and his heart twisted once more when he processed where it was.

“It can’t be,” he whispered.

He wasn’t just in Hoenn. He was in the one part of it he visited the most frequently.

Fallarbor Town.

Swinging himself around, he paced in front of the video phones. This revelation explained why he felt the town looked familiar, but how did he get there? If the aircraft was heading towards the Sevii Islands, wouldn’t it have made more sense to end up somewhere in that archipelago? And what’s more, how did he get there in the first place? Could he fly? If so, why did he choose Hoenn? Did Adam simply read Bill’s subconscious and settle on the hub of the region’s storage system?

The storage system. Bill stopped short and lifted his chin as the idea settled in his brain. His _partner_.

“Lanette!” he exclaimed. “Of course! This is far better than I could have hoped for!”

He turned to the video phone banks and reached out for one of the phones. His heart pounded in excitement. While he knew he could trust Celio, Lanette was a far better choice for help. After all, she was Bill’s complement. Bill studied the minds of pokémon; she studied the body. She knew everything there was to know about how a pokemon’s anatomy and biological processes worked, so if anyone could figure out how the ixodida transformation happened, it would be her. And if Bill could get her to help him figure out how the transformation happened, then she would most likely have an answer for how to change back. All he had to do was reach her.

Sitting at the booth, he tapped her number on the keypad and pressed the receiver to his ear. Flexing the fingers of his weaker hand, he waited, silently praying that she would pick up.

Unfortunately, what he got was her cheery voice repeating a single message he was all-too familiar with. “Hello! You have reached the Chastain household. We’re sorry we are currently unavailable, but if you leave your name and number after the tone, we will try to reach you as soon as we can. Thank you!”

Bill took a deep breath and leaned against the wall of the booth until the beep came. “Lanette? It’s Bill. If you get this, I’m at the Fallarbor Pokémon Center. I need your help. It’s ...” He glanced over his shoulder at his tail, which sprawled across the floor behind him for at least two feet. “It’s urgent.” He turned back to the video phone. “I hope to see you soon.”

And then, after the briefest hesitation, he placed the receiver back in its place, ending the call with a click. He continued to lean against the wall of the cubicle for a few seconds before pushing off the stool. Then, he turned towards the doorway as his hand ran through his wiry hair.

“No sense in staying here,” he muttered. “Perhaps if I find someone, I could—”

He stopped short once more. This time, it was because he wasn’t alone. In the doorway, a single person stood. A girl, actually—one no older than eleven. Her wide, dark eyes settled on Bill, and her face blanched. Bill shook at that point. He knew her. He knew this girl. He knew that the short, green hair was the exact color of her mother’s. He knew that the flower hair clips she wore to keep her bangs out of her face were given to her by her sister. He knew that the shade of pink that her shorts were happened to be her exact favorite color and that her boots were considered fashionable in her hometown. And he knew that she always wore Hello Skitty merchandise like her hooded sweatshirt because she adored those cartoons, even if she recently tried to insist that she was too old for them. He even knew that she was here because she wanted to go to Hoenn since she was eight, after she saw her first contest on television.

And he knew all of this because he watched her grow up. Because he bought her those boots for Christmas. Because he sometimes watched Hello Skitty cartoons with her when he was bored. Because her sister wouldn’t stop rubbing in the fact that she got those hair clips for the birthday that he missed. Because one time, he let her choose that shade of pink for one of the wallpapers for the storage system.

Because her mother was his.

“Raye?” he whispered.

She took a step back. It was then that he realized she wouldn’t be able to recognize him. So he stood, hands behind his back as he leaned forward a little.

“Raye, it’s me,” he said. “It’s Nii-chan.”

She stared at him for a long time, her eyes widening slightly for each second that passed. Bill relaxed, and a grin slowly spread across his face. Thinking that she understood, he slowly moved his good hand into view, reaching out to her with his palm up.

And then, she screamed.

Bill flinched, snapping his hands over his ears in pain. The sound had torn at his eardrums; it had somehow been louder than any scream he had heard from a person. And then, when it finally died down, his ears continued to ring until the lingering tone gave way to the sound of boots pounding into the floor. Looking up, Bill could see a glimpse of his sister ducking into a room far down the hall, just before she slammed the double doors behind her.

That wasn’t the worst of it, either. Behind him, Bill could hear the barking of several different dog-like pokémon, accompanied by the shouts of startled humans. Above him, on the second floor, footsteps shuffled, and the distant trills of other pokémon filled the room.

“Oh no,” he muttered. “They’ll think I—”

Shaking his head, he tried to dash forward, towards the hallway. His tail tangled in his feet, which slipped out from underneath him to send him sprawling into the floor. He yelped on impact before glancing back at his legs.

“What?” he muttered.

Then, he lifted himself onto his hands and legs and darted forward a few steps before stopping.

“Wait. What am I... ?”

He turned and backed into the hallway on all fours, feeling for the first time how natural it seemed to run that way. The barking and footsteps drew closer, and as panic welled in his chest, his instincts screamed at him to stay down. He even felt himself crouch, his body low as he continued to move backwards into the hallway. His eyes flicked towards his hands and legs again until he eventually stopped and trembled where he was.

“No!”

Shakily, he stood up, clutching the wall for support as he forced his feet to support himself. His weaker hand drifted to his face, and he clutched his head and breathed deeply.

“Stop it,” he said. “Get a hold of yourself, Bill. Concentrate! Don’t lose yourself just because—”

The front door crashed open, and the next thing Bill knew, he was bolting down the hall on all fours again.

It wasn’t until he slammed into the door his sister had passed through and tumbled into the same room that he stopped. Only then, he scrambled to his feet again to slam the door shut and lean into it.

“What am I doing?” he muttered into its surface. “Running on my hands and knees like that. What do you think you are, Bill?” He exhaled and pressed his forehead against the door. “I’ve got to keep thinking like a human. It’s too early for me to start adopting traits of a pokémon. It never happened this soon whenever I wore a costume.”

_Not a costume._

Bill looked up. “Adam? I thought you were asleep.”

Another silence passed between them. Bill huffed and turned back to the door.

“Some help you are.”

Outside a manectric howled. Bill backed away from the door and cast his eyes around the room in a panic. They were going to find him if he didn’t do something soon, and if they found him like that, especially after Raye screamed, he wasn’t sure if they would be so friendly to him. He had to figure out a way to stall them, but how?

The answer, fortunately for him, was right behind him: apparently, this room was a kitchen. Long, metal counters extended the length of the room, leading to walk-in refrigerator doors at the other end. On the wall right next to him, utensils hung from hooks above sinks. With a quick swipe, Bill pulled a ladle from one of these hooks and jammed it through the doors’ handles to hold them shut. Then, after a second of thought, he grabbed two other ladles and threaded them through as well. Right after he finished, the doors shook as a pokémon on the other side threw itself against them. The manectric howled again, and the hallway lit up with the flash of electricity.

Shakily, Bill backed away from the doors. Voices shouted from somewhere down the hall, and at that point, Bill knew he didn’t have much time. He had to find a place to hide—and quickly too.

Turning, he cast another glance around the room until his eyes settled on the refrigerators. They were an option, although not an ideal one, given that they wouldn’t provide much of a means to escape if Bill needed to. But …

He stepped forward, his nails scratching against the floor. In response, a quiet voice whimpered from the other side of the room. Bill stopped, listening carefully over the sounds of people shouting behind him. He could just make out the soft noise, the muffled sobbing from behind one of the counters. Raye.

Although he knew the ladles wouldn’t hold the doors shut for much longer, Bill crept forward as quietly as he could. A new plan formed in his mind. If he could get Raye to understand who he was, then perhaps she could convince the others he wasn’t a threat.

“Raye?” he called in a low voice. “Raye, I won’t hurt you. It’s me.”

Another whimper. This time, it was loud enough for Bill to get a fix on where she was. Straight ahead, right up against the end of a counter. He could see part of her boot slipping out of view. Carefully, he stalked forward, bending down as he moved. He caught her scent: an earthy, flowery smell with just a tinge of sourness and metal—the latter of which his mind kept translating into fear.

“Raye?” he repeated. “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

He leaned down, peering around the corner at her to see her crouched under the counter. Her hands clutched her head, and her knees were drawn against her chest. When she realized Bill was close to her, she leaned away and pressed against the metal behind her, as if she could blend herself into the shadows beneath the countertop. Bill reached out to her, ready to grasp one of her wrists gently, but before he could, a crash signaled that the ladles had given way.

Swiveling around, Bill stood and watched the doors swing open to reveal a manectric. Behind it, a stocky young man stood with his chunky fists up and a wide, determined grin on his face.

“Great job, Manectric!” he said. “Oh wow! The ixodida! Guys, I found it!”

Bill hesitated. Found _it_? _The_ ixodida? Bill stepped back and cast a glance towards the counter. Raye, meanwhile, was scrambling away from him as quickly as she could, with her arms over her head. With a gasp, he reached out to her, his mouth opening in preparation to cry out her name.

“Manectric, Spark!”

Right then, Bill jumped. “Spark?!”

The manectric didn’t hesitate like Bill had. By the time he realized what was going on, his opponent was already halfway across the room, engulfed in a brilliant, blue aura of light and crackling electricity. He only had time to turn towards the pokémon before it slammed head first into his torso. Instantly, he was knocked off his feet and into the refrigerator door directly behind him. His world lit up in blue, and a surge of electricity burst through his body all at once. He was certain he cried out, but all he could hear was the thunderous crack of lightning.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back with the manectric standing on his chest. It snarled at him, pulling back its blue lips to reveal sharp fangs as it dipped its head close to Bill’s face.

“All right, Manectric! Great job!” the trainer shouted. “Now use Thunder Fang!”

The dog reared its head back and opened its jaws. Sparks of electricity cracked off its fangs as it swung its head down, aiming for Bill’s face. Running on instinct, Bill snapped his hands upward and seized the dog’s muzzle. Electricity jolted through his fingers, but with a wince, Bill held fast to the creature and pushed back in an attempt to stop it from biting him.

“Oh man! Manectric, don’t let it win!” its trainer yelled. “Switch to Fire Fang!”

Bill’s eyes went wide as the manectric’s fangs stopped sparking. He knew exactly what would happen if the dog succeeded in its attack. While he wasn’t completely certain what his type was, judging from his skin, he knew he was at least part steel. And if he was indeed a steel-type, that could only mean a good fire move from a high enough leveled pokémon would annihilate him. He needed to act fast, and that meant getting the dog off him.

However, in the time that it took for him to realize that, the manectric was already preparing to attack. Flames bubbled from its throat and filled its mouth, engulfing Bill’s hands within seconds. Blinding pain seared down Bill’s arms, and he screamed as he wrenched his hands from the canine’s mouth. In the second that Bill was distracted, the manectric took the opportunity to bite down on his forearms instead, sending flames swirling around the ixodida’s flesh. The pain swallowed Bill whole, and his shrieks crescendoed and then faded into a barely audible sob.

Then, the manectric let his arms slip from its muzzle, and it planted its paws on the floor beside him. Bill curled up on his side, letting his hands fall limply to the floor. His throat throbbed as the result of his panicked screams, but that ache seemed dull and minor compared to the blistering agony radiating from his limbs. He couldn’t even move his fingers, let alone feel his arms. All he could do was cry quietly into the floor.

Footsteps clacked across the kitchen’s tiles, and from Bill’s vantage point, he could see the feet of a chansey and the shoes of the manectric’s trainer, a Nurse Joy, and an Officer Jenny. All four of them stopped behind the growling manectric.

“Good job, Thom,” Officer Jenny said.

“Thanks!” The trainer clapped his hands together. “Want me to finish it off?”

“No,” Bill rasped.

The three humans stopped and stared. Bill shifted, forcing himself onto his knees.

“Please,” he said. “I … I’m not a threat.”

“It can talk,” Nurse Joy gasped.

“I don’t care if it can dance and sing,” Officer Jenny responded. “We don’t know why it’s here or what it’s planning. Thom, finish it off!”

“Aye aye, Officer!” he exclaimed with a salute. “Manectric, let’s go! One more Fire Fang should do it!”

“No!” Bill cried.

The familiar feeling of power flared to life in his chest. Without thinking, he crossed his arms in front of his face and mentally pushed the energy inside him outwards. Green light pulsed from his skin and flared into a bubble around him just as the manectric sprung into action. Its maw filled with flames, but when it lunged for Bill, it slammed into the green barrier with a bang and bounced harmlessly off. As soon as it landed on the floor, it growled at him but took a few steps back. Bill, meanwhile, shakily stood.

“What?!” Officer Jenny snapped. “Thom, do it again!”

“You-you got it!” Thom stammered. “Manectric, Fire Fang once more!”

It swung its head around, and its mouth filled with fire for a third time. Bill ground his feet into the floor and took a deep breath. Once again, he felt the power he needed, but this time, he flung his hands outward to form the barrier. The wall glittered around him, and it stood firm as manectric launched itself at Bill again. For a second time, the dog hit the barrier and went stumbling backwards until it came to a stop at its trainer’s feet.

A whimper filtered into Bill’s ears from the side. He glanced away from the manectric to catch sight of his sister, still crouched in a corner of the kitchen.

“She’s still here?!” he muttered.

“Manectric! Try again!” Thom shouted.

Snapping his attention back to the battle, Bill tried to conjure another barrier, but although the green light flickered around him, it was too late and too weak. The manectric easily sailed through the barrier baring fangs surrounded by fire. Bill had no choice to dodge in the last second, stumbling towards Raye as the dog passed within an inch of his shoulder. It collided directly into the freezer behind him as he scrambled to maintain his footing. While his opponent dropped to the ground, Bill took a second to glance over his shoulder at Raye.

“Run!” he snapped.

“No good!” Thom growled. “Manectric, use Thunder Wave to disable it!”

The dog shook its head and rose to its feet. It growled as it turned to Bill and planted all four paws into the ground. The air around it lit up with blue electricity, and it howled once again as blue tendrils of lightning snapped towards Bill. Yet again, he braced himself and tried to summon the power to channel outward, but this time, it didn’t come. Instead, the green light flickered in front of him and faded just before one of the bolts of blue lightning struck him dead in the chest. There was no pain this time. It was just as if all feeling in his body died down, save for a rushing, pins-and-needles sensation flowing into him from his extremities. He collapsed to his knees as the light died down abruptly, and right then, he felt as if his body was locked in place. Grimacing, he tried to force himself to move, but no matter what he did, his limbs simply wouldn’t obey.

“No! Not now!” he whispered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Raye stand slowly.

“Raye,” he hissed. “You’ve got to get out of here! This is a battlefield! Go!”

“Okay, Manectric! Now we’ve got it!” Thom called out. “Let’s go with Shock Wave to finish it off!”

“Wait, Thom! Don’t! Rachel’s over there!” Nurse Joy cried.

“What?!”

It was too late to retract the order. The manectric already tensed its body as its crest took on a brilliant, yellow glow. Looking over his shoulder at his sister, Bill knew what would happen if Shock Wave were to be released. With her as close as she was and with him as low to the ground as he was, he had no doubt she would be caught in the attack. Knowing that, Bill forced himself to stand, his body protesting with every inch. Grinding his teeth, he shut his eyes and concentrated hard until he dug deep within himself to find what felt like a burning fire deep inside him. He pulled at the fire until he sensed it flow across his skin, and then, he spread his arms and stood firm in front of Raye. When he opened his eyes, the barrier flared to life in front of him just as the manectric released. Blue bolts of electricity blossomed from the dog’s crest and exploded in a rain of strikes across the barrier. But Bill’s Protect held firm, right up until the point where the manectric’s electricity fizzled into nothingness.

And then, Bill let his arms drop to his sides, and the barrier faded away. He took a few shallow breaths before glancing back over his shoulder.

“Raye,” he gasped, “I know it’s difficult to believe, but please listen. I’m … I’m your …”

Before he could finish, he collapsed face down onto the floor.

* * *

Sekitan Island. Technically, it was part of Hoenn’s regional influence, but it was easy to forget that it existed. Years ago, during the last of the great wars and just before the International Pact, Sekitan had been a mining island for coal. It had been Japan’s most promising coal site, in fact, with half a million tons of coal shipped from its ports per year at the peak of its productivity. At one time, Sekitan had been the most densely populated island in Japan, housing thousands of mine workers and families in the gray, concrete skyscrapers filling its surface.

That was before the mines closed.

There was a valid reason for it. Japan’s demand for coal had simply dropped, and it was much easier and more profitable to get it from the easily accessible mines of Sinnoh. Ships no longer had to worry about the high winds or rough seas between Hoenn and Sekitan, the Sinnohian mountains were easier to carve into than the Hoennian seabeds, and the settlements along Mt. Coronet didn’t have to depend on daily shipments of supplies to survive. So, it had been decided by the companies that owned Sekitan that there was no need for the mining city, and company executives had offered ferries to move the residents back to the mainland.

Between the apartment complexes’ cramped quarters, the viciousness of typhoons, and the uncertainty of daily supplies, the residents of Sekitan Island couldn’t leave quicker. The last of them had evacuated in the 70’s, leaving a ghost town of concrete skyscrapers behind.

As far as the present residents of Japan knew, that was the fate of Sekitan: to stand forever on Hoenn’s horizon as a ghost city. What they didn’t know is that only the first line of buildings, the ones nearest to the Hoenn coastline, were still unoccupied. The ones behind them, meanwhile, were still lit, and the vast network of mines were reinforced and renovated into a massive labyrinth of steel.

This was the home of D.E.V.A.

No one in the general populace knew that D.E.V.A. existed. According to official paperwork, it didn’t. Only the highest officials were aware of what D.E.V.A. was, and the organization took careful steps to cover up its tracks wherever it went. And when it came to the aforementioned official paperwork, it was only associated with the Japanese government in that the highest offices allowed its activities to continue unabated and assisted D.E.V.A. when they specifically requested help. D.E.V.A. held relationships like this with every ruling power on the planet. Give D.E.V.A. what it needed and be left alone. That was the golden rule.

As difficult as it was to describe D.E.V.A.’s existence, what it was for was easy to put into words. It was an organization dedicated to the capture, containment, and research of realistic anomalies. Aliens. Reality warpers. Cryptids. Objects and locations linked or thought to be urban myths. They were, in short, the Men in Black, the people who ensured that the weirdest parts of their world remained mere rumors. And the ixodida were becoming a bit of a nuisance to them as of late.

At the same time that Bill escaped from Team Rocket, a helicopter started up on a rooftop on the southern edge of Sekitan Island. Agents in black suits stood on either side of the doorway to the maintenance stairwell while others bustled to and from the helicopter, checking and rechecking steps on the pre-flight checklist.

Ten minutes after the engine started, the door to the stairwell opened, and out strode a bald man in a labcoat. He ran a hand over his reddish-gray beard and mustache as he squinted towards the reddening sky. His other hand clutched the handle of a small, black suitcase until he was halfway to the helicopter. At that point, D.E.V.A. personnel snapped into action. Several of them saluted and stepped aside. One agent rushed forward and took the man’s suitcase before walking him to the helicopter.

“We’re ready when you are, sir,” the agent informed him. “Your flight’s been cleared, and Polaris Institute has been made aware of your pending arrival.”

The man grinned, and in a thick, Scottish accent, he responded, “Good. I wouldn’t want to keep old Sam waiting, now, do—”

He stopped short as the door to the stairs banged open again. Through the doorway bolted a young agent, looking far more concerned than a member of D.E.V.A. normally would be. The guards around the door immediately drew their weapons but stopped as the man in the helicopter raised a hand.

“Oi! Stand down! What’s the meaning of this, then?” he shouted.

The agent skidded to a halt before the helicopter and bowed briefly. “Councilor One, we just received an urgent call from Polaris Institute!”

“Urgent call?” The man furrowed his thick eyebrows. “What about? Out with it!”

At once, the agent straightened and lifted his head. “It’s about Codename Adam, sir. He escaped.”

“Escaped, eh?” Councilor One leaned back in his chair. “Where to?”

“Uncertain, sir. According to the readings on his tracking device, he was on a path heading for the Sevii Islands. Approximately ten minutes ago, his flight path abruptly changed to a trajectory towards northwest Hoenn.”

“Hoenn.” Councilor One rubbed his eyes and forehead.

“Sir, do you think this has something to do with Team Rocket’s recent violation of the Yeled Protocol?” the agent asked.

“Are pikachu electric-types?” Councilor One barked. “Of course it has.”

“Then do you recommend that we take action against Team Rocket now?”

“No,” he growled. “So long as Project Stardust is in operation, we’ll need their so-called intelligence and scientists to understand what the hell we’re dealing with. But we could speed ‘em along. Look into the other research institutes. We’re going to see if we can hand these bastards an ixodida gift-wrapped with a little bow.” He paused. “Well. Guess that’ll make the answer to your question a yes then.” Motioning towards the agent, he turned back to the interior of the helicopter. “Make it a vicious one.”

“Yes, sir,” the agent responded. “And sir? What about Codename Adam?”

Councilor One turned his head back to the agent. “Pinpoint his location and have Councilor Three send a team out to keep an eye on him.”

“To protect him from the other ixodida, sir?”

“No, from himself! God knows my son digs himself into enough trouble as a human.”

With that, Professor John McKenzie, present director of D.E.V.A. and head of its Committee, slammed the helicopter door shut on his subordinate.


	9. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill wakes up not to find himself changed into a gigantic insect but instead to find himself smack in the middle of a war.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 1_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: DOSSIER_  
 _DESIGNATION: D.E.V.A. PERSONNEL CODEX ENTRY #542981_  
 _DESCRIPTION: YELED PROTOCOL—ESSENTIAL INFORMATION, LATEST UPDATE_  
 _DATE-TIME: 25/01/02, 11:16 (LAST EDITED)_

_YELED PROTOCOL: Standard operations pertaining to Team Rocket activity in relation to children of key D.E.V.A. operatives._

_HISTORY: From 1977 to 1978, Professor John George McKenzie unwittingly participated in Project M2, a full-scale scientific project commissioned by Team Rocket. (See CODEX ENTRY #234250: TEAM ROCKET.) Its chief goal was to clone SE-003 (“Mew”) for specific use by Team Rocket in their goals for global domination. Its front was that of a cloning experiment for the purpose of unlocking the potential of pokémon stem cells. Upon learning the truth of this project, McKenzie fled Team Rocket and contacted D.E.V.A. operatives in Goldenrod City, Johto. In exchange for protection, McKenzie offered his services as a researcher for the Special Entity Index Project. Then-director [REDACTED] accepted and, with the approval of the Committee, drafted the first Yeled Protocol. This document was presented in front of Rocket boss Giovanni di Razzo, who readily accepted its terms._

_DETAILS: The Yeled Protocol prevents Team Rocket from harming (directly or indirectly) or capturing individuals under its protection. Violations of the Yeled Protocol result in the authorization of total annihilation. Specifically, a violation of the Yeled Protocol authorizes the entirety of Task Force Omega to utilize Special Entities, such as and most preferably 016 (“Celebi”) and 049 (“Giratina”), to exterminate any known traces of Team Rocket from the international underworld._

_INDIVIDUALS UNDER YELED PROTECTION:_  
 _* Christina Lynn McKenzie (“Christa”), daughter of John McKenzie_  
 _* William Henry McKenzie (“Bill”), son of John McKenzie—SEE CODEX ENTRY #645279: MCKENZIE, WILLIAM H_  
 _* Rachel Hope McKenzie (“Raye”), daughter of John McKenzie_  


_RELATED ARTICLES:_  
 _* CODEX ENTRY #234250: Team Rocket_  
 _* CODEX ENTRY #645279: McKenzie, William H_  
 _* OMEGA REPORT #000473: The Adam Incident_  
 _* PERSONNEL FILE: McKenzie, John G_

* * *

Professor John McKenzie stood at the front desk of Polaris Institute’s security office, where he played with the USB drive he had swiped from an officer. Part of him wanted to play the part of ornery old man, if only because it had been a long flight between New Bark and Sekitan, a long meeting at D.E.V.A. headquarters, and another long flight between Sekitan and Cinnabar. Granted, no one but the agents he had within Polaris would know why he was ornery, but it would at least be mildly entertaining.

Alternatively, he could play up the facade he presented to the world for the past twenty years: that of a slacker and a lecherous old man with a gambling habit. It was so easy to go with that persona, to pretend he was simply bored with the world and pokémon research and that it was some kind of complete fluke that he was invited to New Bark. He could go any of a number of ways with this, and he knew Professor Oak would see through them all. After all, hewas one of the world’s foremost experts on pokémon genetics and biophysics and the man who spent a decadecreating the index of pokémon moves the International Pokémon League Association used as its legal move dex. His passion, at one time, exceeded the fire his son presently felt for his own work. John would be the one most likely to spend days camped out near a freezing lake just for the opportunity to see a magikarp use Tackle once. He would be the one who would spend hours in a laboratory poring over the same string of DNA to figure out whether or not crossbreeding between types introduced the tiniest alterations to a hatchling’s weaknesses and resistances. At one time, he knew more and did more than any other pokémon researcher in the Symposium.

And for the past twenty years, he had done nothing but gamble away his research funds. Not even Professor Oak knew why.

Presently, he looked up to see a security officer walk into the room and approach the desk. He still hadn’t decided on which way to greet this officer, and because of that, he stared at her neutrally, regarding her as if he wouldn’t even care if she tased him right then and there.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “It seems the head of the biophysics team is in an experiment at the moment, but Professor Oak should still be arriving any moment to—where did you get that?”

John glanced down at the USB drive. He would recognize the design anywhere: the twisting, vine-like gold patterns on the blue shell. Sometimes he questioned his son’s tastes, but he took pleasure in the concept that Bill’s over-the-top flamboyance was just his way of rebelling against social norm. John raised him well, in other words. According to his own interpretation of his son’s nature, anyway.

Smirking, John responded, “You know, you really should lock up your lost-and-found. Or at least not keep the things you confiscate right on your bleedin’ desks.”

The officer reeled back and struggled to maintain official composure. “We were analyzing it. The programs on it were far more advanced than anything we’ve ever seen.”

“Of course they would be,” John responded as he put the USB drive in his breast pocket. “Look at who you took it from. But if you must know, this very likely contains a remote login utility designed to crack even the most advanced security measures. So when you say advanced, of course you mean that.” He pointed to the area behind her. “You got his laptop too?”

“Yes. We confiscate all computer equipment at the checkpoint to prevent the communication of classified information.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna need that.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” The officer held out a hand. “In fact, I’ll need to ask for that USB drive back.”

John raised an eyebrow. It looked like he had to go with the ornery old man act after all—not so much out of obligation as it was because this was just too good of a chance to pass up.

“Then ask,” he said.

Her eyes went wide, and her mouth moved loosely as she tried to find anything to say. At last, she found her voice.

“May I have that USB drive back, please?”

John drew himself away from the desk. “No.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded, as the door finally swung open. In walked Professor Oak, who took one look at the security officer, then John, and then back at the security officer.

“Professor McKenzie, isn’t it a little early to start antagonizing my staff?”

“Oi! What kind of greeting is that?!” John responded. “Professor McKenzie. You didn’t call me that in college, ya old coot!”

He walked forward and held out his hand. Oak took it, and as the two shook, John threw his free arm over his companion’s shoulder to smack him on the back in a half-hug. When they separated, both of them were smirking widely at each other.

“My God, you turned ugly,” John said. “Look at ya! How much sleep are you gettin’, ya old dog? Looks like it’s not enough; you look older than Rowan!”

“Good to see you haven’t changed, John,” Oak responded warmly. “How was your flight?”

“Terrible. The flight attendants wouldn’t even look at me,” John replied glumly. “You pinch one of ‘em in the bum, and all of a sudden, the whole plane’s leery at you.”

Oak’s grin wavered. The problem with John, in his opinion, is that claims like that could very well be true. But the man was brilliant and amicable if you got to know him, and that was what mattered in Oak’s book. Or at least that’s what he thought for the past forty years, ever since the two of them met as Professor Rowan’s research assistants.

“Still can’t keep yourself out of trouble, I see,” Oak commented. “Some things really don’t ever change.”

John grinned. “And why should they? Riko still loves me.” He tipped the edge of his cap. “By the way, she sends her regards.”

“Mm. And the rest of your family?”

He shrugged. “Dad’s still as daft as ever. Forgot what a pikachu was the other day. And Christa’s up for the next Kalos League Championship.” Then, he frowned. “And they still haven’t found my Rachel, and you know exactly how William’s doing.”

Oak visibly flinched at the last one, his smile fading within seconds. “Yes. I’m sorry, John. I don’t think I can express that enough.”

“Not your fault.”

“It isn’t Bill’s either. I want you to know that.”

“I already do.”

Oak looked at John for a long time. The expression on John’s face had turned dark and serious; for the first time, he tried to drop his facade and let Oak know, wordlessly, that he knew. That he knew exactly what was going on in this facility, that he knew all too well that Rocket agents were infesting the personnel, that he knew that there was one individual in this fortress directly responsible for Bill’s infection and the violation of a protocol Oak had never heard of, and that he knew this person wore a red R emblazoned on their chest like the scarlet letter.

But he didn’t say anything explicitly, and he left it at that. In the next instant, he was grinning again and wrapping his arm around Oak’s shoulders.

“Enough about that. Let’s talk business. What do I need to know about Project Stardust before I begin my work here?” he asked.

“Well, actually, John, that’s something I need to talk to you about,” Oak replied. “You know about the infection of two personnel here at Polaris, including your son. We still have the second victim, but your son’s recently escaped. I’ve already asked the Committee to see if we can send someone to find him and bring him back while his collar is still communicating his location.”

“No, no,” John replied, “besides that.”

Oak gave him one last curious glance as his partner opened the door.

* * *

“You don’t get it. Ixodida cannot be reasoned with! They’re not pets, and they’re not pokémon, okay?”

“No, you don’t get it. This one _spoke_ , Officer Jenny.”

“We’ve seen ones that spoke! In case you need to be reminded, those were the ones that wound up being the most dangerous because they told the ones that couldn’t speak to attack us in massive, orchestrated groups. Look at what happened to Mauville City!”

Bill flinched. The voice was so loud, so grating, so harsh, that it penetrated his ears like needles stabbed directly into his eardrums.

“If it’s so dangerous, then why didn’t it hurt anyone?”

“Because we outnumbered it!”

A sigh heaved in the darkness that was Bill’s world at that moment.

Slowly, Bill stirred in the lull, feeling his surroundings for the first time. There was something soft underneath him, and it felt like he was surrounded by warmth, even though he couldn’t feel anything over him. His fingers on both hands shifted, pushing into the cushion beneath him, and he became acutely aware right then that the pins-and-needles sensation he had felt in his limbs earlier was now gone. In fact, all of the pain he had experienced in the last moment he could remember was gone. It was as if he had merely fallen asleep, not fainted from the agony of the last battle.

“I don’t know,” Nurse Joy replied. “It seemed so fond of Rachel. It looked like it was trying to protect her at the end. And what do you think it meant when it said that it was hers?”

“She’s my sister,” Bill murmured.

Simultaneously, both women responded, “Huh?”

Groaning, Bill opened his eyes. Above him, he could see the glassy dome of a medical pod. That at least explained why he couldn’t feel any pain. Above him, the face of Nurse Joy slid into view, peering down at him with concern. She placed her hands on the Plexiglas dome as she examined him.

“It’s awake,” she said with a heavy sigh of relief.

Officer Jenny cursed behind her. Ignoring the police woman, Nurse Joy reached down to tap a few keys at the base of the medical pod. Bill could hear the soft beeping of each command she wrote.

“Wait!What are you doing?!” Officer Jenny cried.

“Opening the medical pod,” Nurse Joy replied calmly. “I can’t examine it if it’s confined.”

“Are you crazy?!”

Jenny stormed forward and grabbed Nurse Joy’s wrists. Bill could see her turn, pulling Joy’s hands away from the machinery.

“You open that thing, and there’s no telling what it’ll do,” she hissed.

“It’s weak,” Joy replied as she yanked her hands out of Jenny’s reach. “It’s just recovered from significant burns and electrocution, and just by glancing at its face, I can tell it hasn’t even fed in a while. It most likely doesn’t have the strength to fight us, even if it wanted to.”

“How can you be so sure?” Jenny snapped. “These things can get up and walk around if we shot them in the head. How do you know this one won’t just ignore how bad it’s been beaten up to claw your face off the first chance it gets?”

Joy rested one hand on the pod and the other on her hip. “Do you really want a confirmation that much?”

“Yes!”

She turned back to the medical pod. Placing both hands on the dome, she peered down at Bill.

“You won’t hurt us, right?” she asked reassuringly.

Bill felt more stunned by the conversation than weakened by his injuries. He could only stare with wide eyes at Joy and Jenny for the entire length of their banter, but now that he was being addressed directly, he had to force himself to respond. This came in the form of a brief but firm shake of the head.

“Promise?” she asked.

He nodded quickly.

“There.”

Nurse Joy reached down to finish punching in a code. The Plexiglas top retracted into the base of the machine, and Joy turned to Jenny with a triumphant smirk.

“See? Nothing to worry about.”

Jenny stood back. “You’ve just asked a serial killer to make a pinkie promise that it won’t kill anyone, and you’re taking its word that it won’t as truth. I hope you realize how dumb that sounds.”

At that point, Joy started to ignore Jenny. Instead, she turned back to Bill and placed a gentle hand on his arm. Carefully, she picked it up and bent it at an angle before flexing each claw.

“Don’t worry about her,” Joy told him. “Everyone’s been on edge since your kind started appearing in towns all across the region. Most of the ones we’ve seen … well, they’ve given us a reason to be afraid. _Very_ afraid. You’re the first ixodida we’ve encountered that hasn’t tried to hurt anyone. Thank you.” Then, after a pause too brief to allow Bill to respond, she added, “How does this feel? Nothing hurts?”

Bill shook his head. “It … no, it doesn’t hurt. What do you mean by ‘hasn’t tried to hurt anyone’?”

Joy frowned. “I’m not sure how to explain it without offending you.”

“She means you killed entire towns off,” Jenny snapped.

Bill craned his neck to look at her. Her hand was on the gun in the holster on her belt, and her dark, coffee-colored eyes were narrowed on him dangerously.

“W-what?” he stammered.

“What? Like you don’t know,” Jenny snapped. “You killed entire cities! You and all your friends just go into towns and kill anything that moves. Kids, the elderly, people who don’t own pokémon at all—you don’t care! You killed off Fortree, and then you moved on to Mauville! And now you’re infesting Route 113, and every day, all of us are too scared to go outside because who knows if and when you decide to just flood our town with your kind to finish us off?! In fact ...” She drew her gun and held it in both hands, but she pointed it at the floor for the time being. “How do we know you’re not a scout for them?”

“Stop that right this instant!” Joy yelled, whirling around to face Jenny. “This one has nothing to do with those things, and you know it!”

“You don’t have any proof!” Jenny argued. “You’re basing your entire assumption on the fact that it hasn’t killed anyoneyet! Who knows what it’s going to do as soon as our backs are turned?!”

“If it wanted to do that, it would have before Thom knocked it out!” She turned towards Bill again, and in a softer voice, she asked, “Right?”

At that, Bill thought he had heard enough. Gingerly, he sat up, pressing his hands into the bed to support him. He didn’t pretend to ignore Jenny’s arms sweeping upwards to point her gun directly at his head. In fact, he glared at her gravely.

“I didn’t know about anything you said,” he told her quietly, “because Nurse Joy is right. I’m not like any of the others you encountered. I’d only just arrived here when you found me.”

“Exactly,” Jenny sneered. “Because you came in from Route 113.”

“No, because I came in from Cinnabar Island!” Bill heaved a breath before craning his neck again to show off his collar. One of his claws tapped the front panel, pointing directly at the symbol etched on its face. “Do you see this? This is the insignia of Polaris Institute, a research facility on Cinnabar Island. They’re studying the ixodida right now. I was meant to be one of its researchers, but I was involved in a situation that ended with an ixodida parasite attaching itself to me.”

Jenny’s finger rested on the trigger. “That sounds a little farfetched. You took that plot from a science fiction movie, didn’t you?”

Bill hunched his shoulders and stared at her in annoyance. “If you don’t believe me, ask Raye.”

“That’s Rachel, right? What does Rachel have to do with this?” Nurse Joy suddenly asked. “You said you were hers before you fainted. What did you mean by that?”

His expression softened a little as he glanced at Nurse Joy. “You heard me, didn’t you? She’s my sister.”

Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny stopped at that moment to exchange glances for a lengthy period of time. Then, slowly, they turned back to Bill.

“Your … your sister?” Joy asked.

“Yes,” Bill replied gravely. “I know it’s difficult to believe.”

“I-I guess I never really thought about it,” Joy told him as she placed her fingers on her chin. “It makes sense. Of course you ixodida would have families of your own, wouldn’t you? But … no one ever really talked about theirs. They … they don’t usually stop to talk, and when they do, they don’t seem human.”

“Of course they don’t,” Jenny grumbled. “They’re too busy killing us all.”

“Maybe they don’t remember their human lives,” Joy responded as she threw a glance over her shoulder at Jenny. And then, slowly, she looked at Bill, as if to study him carefully. “But … if that’s the case, then how can you remember?”

“I don’t know,” Bill sighed. “That was why I was invited to Polaris: to figure out a way to understand the ixodida. I don’t know anything about how they think yet; I didn’t even know that this could happen.” He motioned to his body at that point. Then, he looked directly at Nurse Joy. “Listen, if you don’t believe me—”

“I do,” Joy replied quickly. “Even if some of us don’t.”

“Well, even so,” Bill continued, “it would be useful to ask Raye. I don’t think she recognized me when I met her in the kitchen, so ...” He looked at his lap. “My name is Bill, but she calls me Nii-chan. It means ‘older brother’ in the Old Language. We were taught it when we were young because our mother … our mother was a kimono girl, and every few months, we would see her old troupe. Our father was a pokémon researcher, just like I am now. We have an older sister named Christa, who battlescompetitively. And-and Raye … the last time I spoke to her was for her tenth birthday. I wasn’t there for it because of my job, but I know how excited she was about turning ten. She was going to start off with a squirtle. She wanted to be a pokémon coordinator. And I … I didn’t think that this would happen.” He lowered his gaze. “When the quarantine fell, I wasn’t sure what to think. I thought that she had evacuated back to Johto. I-I didn’t know that she was still here.” He looked up. “If you can’t get her to believe me, then tell her … tell her this exact word, okay? Gomen. That means I’m sorry.”

At that point, Nurse Joy offered him a sympathetic look. Officer Jenny merely rolled her eyes and swung her gun to her side. Did he succeed? Did they believe him? Bill studied Joy’s face carefully, waiting patiently for a response.

And finally, it came. Nurse Joy tore her eyes away from Bill.

“I’m sorry, but … that won’t be possible,” she said.

Bill’s heart shuddered. He could feel his opportunity slipping away. What if they didn’t believe him? It occurred to him only then that he didn’t have a plan and that he wasn’t going to come up with one. This was his last hope.

“What?” he squeaked.

“It’s Rachel,” Joy explained. “I mean … I believe you.” She looked up at him then, giving him another sympathetic glance. “But Rachel hasn’t spoken to almost anyone in town for months.”

Instantly, Bill felt something inside him drop. “W-what? What do you mean ‘she hasn’t spoken to almost anyone’?”

Officer Jenny opened her mouth, but anticipating her reaction, Nurse Joy extended an arm to stop her.

“What I mean to say,” she said—quietly, carefully, “is that Rachel suffered psychological trauma. After the region was quarantined, we began forming search parties to send into the wilderness and bring back as many trainers as we could find. We found Rachel six days later. She was delirious and feverish, and when we nursed her back to health, we found that she was too traumatized to interact with most people in town.”

The bottom-out sensation Bill had felt quickly turned into a burning mixture of anger and panic. Without thinking, he reached out to grab Nurse Joy’s arm. “What? What happened to her?”

“Do you need to have it spelled out?” Officer Jenny snapped. “She was attacked by ixodida. Notice how we didn’t say anything about finding anyone else with her? That’s because they were all dead. We fished Rachel out of what was left of Lavaridge.”

For a long while, Bill fell quiet. His grip on Joy’s arm loosened as he let Jenny’s words sink in. That couldn’t be right. Raye had to be okay. He remembered the way she looked the last time he saw her. Sure, she was always a little shy, but she was always happy, always smiling. And around people she liked? She could chatter about anything. So it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t possibly be true that Raye stopped speaking.

Pulling his hand away, Bill shifted, preparing to push himself off the bed.

“I need to see her,” he said.

Nurse Joy moved her hands to his shoulders and leaned in to push him back into the bed. Her analysis of his condition must have been right because although Bill tried his best to fight back, she succeeded in pushing him back to the bed and keeping him there. So instead of escaping to look for Raye, he merely squirmed uncomfortably on the mattress.

“No,” he whimpered. “Please! I have to see her!”

“Not like that you aren’t,” Officer Jenny snapped. “Even if I was crazy enough to let you out of this room in the first place, you sure as hell are not going to see a little girl who was traumatized by freaks just like you!”

“For once, I’m agreeing with Officer Jenny here,” Nurse Joy replied. Then, realizing how that came across, she straightened and let her expression soften. “I’m sorry. I meant … you haven’t fully recovered yet; you need to rest. And anyway, if you go to Rachel looking the way you are, you’ll just remind her of whatever attacked Lavaridge. So please, stay here.”

“She’s my sister! I need to see her!” Bill hissed and tried to sit up again, only to be pushed back down by Nurse Joy.

“Please stop!” Joy begged. “If you don’t lie down and promise me that you’ll stay here until you’re well enough to walk, I’m going to have to administer sedatives. Please don’t make me do that.”

Bill relaxed under her touch, but it wasn’t because he was succumbing to her threat. Instead, he looked directly into Nurse Joy’s eyes and calmly responded, “Not all of me looks like an ixodida. She has to recognize my face. Let me cover up everything else, and I can see her without scaring her. Please.”

Officer Jenny chortled and rolled her eyes. “Cover up? With what?”

“I don’t know,” Bill growled. “A labcoat and gloves, a bedsheet … anything! Just please.”

“No,” Nurse Joy insisted. “You’re staying here and that’s final!”

Bill sighed and turned his head away from her. Then, he closed his eyes and carefully went over everything Nurse Joy had told him about Raye. As he felt her hands slip away from him, something in her wording surfaced in his brain.

“Wait,” he said. Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked at her again. “You said Raye doesn’t interact with _most_ people in town. Who does she talk to, then?”

Joy shrugged and shook her head. “Just Lanette. No one knows why; Lanette won’t tell us.”

“Lanette?” Bill breathed. “She _is_ here!”

The nurse raised her eyebrows. “Yes. Of course she’s here. She’s the one who practically runs our town.”

“Lanette …”

Bill turned his head and carefully placed his palms over his eyes. He could feel a smile breaking across his face, and he couldn’t help but laugh. Of course. Of course everything would fall into place perfectly.

When he moved his hands to his forehead, he could see Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny glancing at one another again.

“What’s so funny?” Jenny barked as she slowly moved her gun back in front of her.

He looked at her. “Let me speak with Lanette.”

“You’re kidding,” Jenny deadpanned.

“Um.” Joy placed a hand over her mouth and gave Bill a curious glance. “Why on Earth would you want to see Lanette?”

Bill struggled to sit up again but only got as far as propping himself up on his elbows. “She’s … she’s an old friend. Tell her my name. She’ll know who I am.”

They exchanged another glance. This hesitation was a little lengthier, however, and the way they looked—Joy incredibly worried and Jenny stone-faced—instilled a deeply uncomfortable feeling in Bill’s core. Then, Jenny chuckled darkly again and turned towards the door.

“Fine. If he wants to see Lanette, he can see Lanette,” she said as she moved to leave the room. “I’d better report this anyway, considering you’re dead-set on keeping him, Joy.”

Joy stood up straight and turned towards her. “Don’t tell her anything terrible! You can see he’s harmless!”

Jenny didn’t say a word as she passed through the doorway and into the lobby. She merely held up a hand and waved it as a half-hearted acknowledgement.

“What’s wrong?” Bill asked quietly. “Lanette isn’t hurt, is she?”

Joy shook her head again. “No. Nothing like that. It’s just …”

Bill leaned towards her. “Nurse Joy, please. Raye is my sister, and Lanette is one of my closest friends. I need to know if something is terribly wrong here.”

“There isn’t anything wrong with Lanette,” Joy replied.

Then, she sighed and locked eyes with Bill, and her expression couldn’t have been more sympathetic.

“Lanette is our lead hunter. She kills ixodida on sight.”

* * *

At the edge of Fallarbor Town, a house stood silently by a river. Outside, the house looked like any other house. Door. Walls. Roof. Dark windows. Everything untouched by the chaos of the rest of the region. In fact, the only unkempt element was its garden, an overgrown mess of weeds and dried-up berry plants.

Inside, however, was a different story. Boxes lined the walls and stood haphazardly in corners. Papers and books formed precarious stacks on top of every flat surface, and wires lay tangled in heaps under desks. In the far corner of the room, across from a staircase leading to a dusty and barely used upper floor, were a row of computers and racks of servers—all of which were unlit with disuse. Nestled between two computer towers was a telephone, the only object in the room that wasn’t either buried or covered with dust. On its face, a red light blinked steadily, and for a long while, it and the light streaming through the dusty windows were the only sources of light in the room.

Then, the door swung open, and a hand clapped the light switch on the nearest wall. With a click of the switch, the room flooded with light, and a young woman ambled inside, kicking the door closed with the heel of one of her boots.

She moved into the room, navigating the mess with ease and familiarity. One of her arms hung limply at her side, its fist gripping the end of a crowbar. The other hand reached up to toss her orange hair over her shoulder. Wearily, she fixed her red eyes on the staircase and headed towards that, intending on taking a very long shower and heading to bed, but before she reached it, the blinking light caught her attention. She stopped at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the banister as she turned her head towards the phone. After a few moments, she sighed heavily, moved to the desk, and shoved her crowbar on top of a computer monitor. Pressing the button to access her voicemail, she leaned against the desk wearily and waited for its computerized voice.

“You have one new message. New message.”

And then, as soon as the inbox’s introduction cut off, the woman heard the last voice she ever wanted to hear. A voice she was familiar with. A voice that once sent warm sensations through her veins but now just sent ice.

“Lanette? It’s Bill. If you get this, I’m at the Fallarbor Pokémon Center. I need your help. It’s … it’s urgent.”

Her hands shook as the inbox’s voice returned to feed her a list of options. She hovered a finger over a button, ready to replay the message, when the phone suddenly rang. Stiffening, she seized the receiver and yanked it out of the carriage while her other hand jammed a finger onto the voicemail’s stop button.

“What is it?” she barked.

“Lanette? It’s Officer Jenny. I’m at the pokémon center. You’d better get down here.”

She tilted her head into the receiver and picked up the crowbar. “Tell me. Is there a man there?”

“A man?”

“Yes. His name is Bill. Is he there?”

On the other end, Officer Jenny’s voice grew a little softer and darker. “How did you know?”

Lanette sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, just above her glasses. “God. I have a message from him. I’ll be there shortly. Whatever is going on there, keep him out of it. Understand?”

“Well … that’s the thing,” Jenny said slowly. “He _is_ the situation. He says he’s a friend of yours.”

Right then, Lanette removed her hand. She didn’t like where this was going, and in response, she narrowed her eyes at the wall. “And?”

“And he’s an ixodida.”

In the split second that followed, Lanette slammed the receiver back into its carriage. Elegantly, she whirled around, her patchwork skirts swirling around her calves as she turned. Her hand gripped her crowbar tightly, and with that, she stormed towards the front door. All the while, one last message hissed between her clenched teeth.

“ _Goddammit._ ”


	10. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill meets an old friend. She isn't glad to see him.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 3_   
_CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._   
_DOCUMENT TYPE: EXCERPT_   
_DESIGNATION: D.E.V.A. PERSONNEL CODEX ENTRY #645279_   
_DESCRIPTION: MCKENZIE, WILLIAM H—ESSENTIAL INFORMATION, LATEST UPDATE. PRIORITY INFORMATION ONLY._   
_DATE-TIME: LAST EDIT, 18/11/02, 11:16_

_NAME: McKenzie, William H_   
_ALIAS: Bill_   
_DOB: 31/12/81_   
_CURRENT AGE: 19_   
_DESCRIPTION: Male. Height, 5’10”. Further details, see attached image and caption._   
_CITIZENSHIP: Documentation under Japanese registries, Johto Regional Database. Residency registered under the Kanto Regional Database. See JRD Citizenship File #45-097-6421 and KRD Residency File #67-235-0764._   
_OCCUPATION: Pokémon researcher, expertise in related technology, ethology, and paleontology; administrator of the Kanto/Johto Pokémon Storage System (see Special Entity File #056); lighthouse keeper, Cerulean Cape Lighthouse (aka “Sea Cottage”)_   
_AFFILIATIONS: Pokémon Symposium, Pokémon Cutting-Edge Technology Research Center, Celadon University, Kanto/Johto Pokémon League Association. No political affiliations._

_RELEVANCE TO D.E.V.A.: First and only son of Professor John George McKenzie. Explicitly protected by the Yeled Protocol. Creator of Special Entities 056 (“storage system”), 095 (“teleporter”), 141 (“Time Capsule”), 256 (“VS Seeker”). All observations related to these entries have been halted due to the Adam Incident._

_CURRENT STATUS: Infected with SE-528, aka 2000KH (“Ixodida”). Current location, northwest Hoenn. Reconnaissance Team Gamma dispatched for monitoring, as per orders from C-01._

_BACKGROUND: [SEE FULL ENTRY]_

_FURTHER NOTES: [REDACTED—ACCESSIBLE TO CLEARANCE LEVEL 10]_

* * *

_Raye. Variant of Rae, diminutive of Rachel. What does Rachel mean?_

Bill did his best to ignore Adam. His symbiont had woken up not long after Nurse Joy had broken the news to him about Lanette. He had hoped he could have a quiet moment to think and plan his conversation with her, but as soon as the creature inside him stirred, so too began a deluge of chattering in his brain.

Right then, he had a bowl of what seemed to be a cold, paste-like gruel sitting in his lap. It had been given to him by Nurse Joy just a few minutes ago, after she remembered he hadn’t eaten for some time. He was left basically to his own devices after that, save for Adam’s relentless chatting, and it was because of that relentless chatting that he desperately tried to focus on eating, on savoring each salty, chewy bite of meat puree. Something about it was familiar to him, but he couldn’t exactly place what it was. Two things were for certain: that he couldn’t recognize the dish and that he was perfectly willing to repeat the question of what it could be over and over again in his head to drown out Adam’s thoughts.

_Rachel. It is a shame that you take no interest in onomastics. I find it to be a fascinating branch of human knowledge. It reveals so much about a name-bearer and its purpose in life, does it not? Why would you place so much emphasis in titles? Things, people, ideas. Everything must have a title for you._

What was this dish? He knew he would have thought of it as disgusting had he still been human, but to his new self, it was almost completely irresistible. It was creamy but not in a way that caused him to gag. It tasted like chicken and liver simultaneously, but it felt balanced to him. Perfect on his tongue. It was neither too salty nor too basic. Before he knew it, before he thought too hard about the consistency or the taste, he had finished off half the bowl, and with each bite, he felt himself grow stronger again.

_Rachel. Hold on. I see something. You remember when your mother was with child. How excited she was, how much she prepared._

Bill gripped his spoon tighter, but he didn’t respond. The last thing he wanted to do to dignify Adam’s comments with an answer. Instead, he continued to scoop out spoonfuls of paste and pull them into his mouth, where his tongue lapped around each morsel carefully.

_You remember all the conversations about your sister’s name, do you not?_

He drew the spoon out of his mouth and clenched his teeth on the swirling pate. In his mind, he saw himself as a child, sitting back home, at the table in Goldenrod with his mother wrapping her arms around him. He could feel her warmth. He could smell her flowery perfume. He could almost hear her sing-song voice in his ear right then. She was asking him to pick a name from a book she gave him. A special name. Something that would be perfect for the little sister he had looked forward to meeting since the moment his parents told him the news.

And he remembered making the lists after that. In between piles of homework read and college applications filled out, he wrote list upon list in a spare notebook. It started with one giant list of names he liked, but then there was a list of names drawn from that and another list of names drawn from that, on and on until he filled the notebook and came to a simple list of five names he hoped his mother would choose from. And she did.

_Rachel,_ Adam said. _Hebrew name meaning ewe—female sheep. Fascinating that it is another Biblical name, yet it is also another name that you insist on bastardizing. Is that the name she prefers, or is it the one you assigned her?_

Bill scooped the last of the pate from the bowl and shoveled it into his mouth a little too aggressively. He swallowed it at once instead of playing with it this time, and as soon as it was gone, he smacked the bowl down onto a nearby side table.

“Enough,” he growled. “Are we going to have a meaningful conversation anytime soon, or are you just going to spend all of my waking hours trying your hardest to try my patience?”

_Seeing as you had the fantastic consideration to wake me up by being the most self-destructive host imaginable, I feel that it is perfectly within my right to vex you._

“I said I was sorry about that!” Bill protested. “It wasn’t my idea to fight a trained manectric, much less one that knew Fire Fang!”

_Yet you did._

Bill crossed his arms. “Might I remind you what you said to me before you went into hibernation? You told me to survive. I did what I had to do.”

_Your sense of wit is healthy. Good. It means you recover quickly, a quality I had hoped my host would possess._

At that, Bill jumped slightly, and his eyes went wide for a second. As soon as that second passed, however, he looked towards the ceiling with an exasperated look.

“Did you just manipulate this conversation to be a good thing for _you_?” he asked.

_Stop being so easy to manipulate, and maybe the next conversation will be yours to win._

“I ...” Bill pressed a hand to his forehead. “I think I’m tired again.”

As if to emphasize this, he lay back down and slid his arms over his chest. For almost a minute, he shut his eyes tightly and exhaled deeply. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he could almost see Adam’s tent: the reds and purples of the cushions and the white flash of the parasite’s robes. But more than that, he could see the creature’s face clearly. And, more specifically, he could see how bored it looked for the briefest of seconds before its face turned completely blank.

_You are upset with me._

“Of course I am,” Bill grumbled.

_Is it because of the additional clause?_

Bill opened one eye just a crack, dispelling his vision of Adam. “Additional clause?”

_Yes. You agreed to allow me to do whatever it takes to ensure our survival._

At that, Bill opened both of his eyes and squinted at the glaringly white ceiling. His fingers dug into the mattress as he struggled to control the hot anger now bubbling inside him.

“Oh yes,” he said in a quiet hiss. “You violated our contract.”

_I did not. My actions, in every way, uphold our contract to the letter._

Bill sat up abruptly. “Don’t lie to me! The agreement was that you would give me control, and you wouldn’t do anything that would give me any reason to distrust you. You took over my body. That’s not exactly upholding our agreement, Adam.”

_On the contrary. You gave me permission to do so._

“When did I do that?!”

_When you gave me explicit permission to do whatever I must to protect you,_ Adam replied. Remember? You did so while we were trapped in the box of light. Besides, the original agreement was that I was not to do anything that would harm you. By standing by and doing nothing, you would have been harmed. Therefore, I upheld both the original terms and the added terms. The only wrong I committed was neglecting to tell you what it is I was doing, but you must understand that I did not have the time. Is this an adequate enough explanation for you?

Bill couldn’t help but growl. Every last word Adam told him only fed his anger. He couldn’t trust the parasite—not now, not when he had lost control once already.

“That’s it then?” Bill barked. “You’re going to take control whenever it’s most convenient for you, just because you tricked me into giving you the permission once?”

_Of course not,_ Adam replied lightly. _I will only take control when I have no other choice for the sake of protecting my host. You saw for yourself how much energy I spent getting you out of trouble. As the host body, you hold certain benefits that I cannot take advantage of and are, therefore, better equipped to face the outside world. It is much more efficient and far easier to simply teach you to adapt, rather than to take your body for myself. I hope you take this as your guarantee that control over this body will mostly be yours._

“So you’re just protecting your assets?!” Bill snapped.

_In a word … yes. This should come as no surprise to you. As a symbiont, it is your physical form that is most useful to me, although your mind is certainly an advantage._

Bill gritted his teeth. “Remind me again why you’re not a parasite.”

_Because if I was, your well being would not be as much of a concern to me._

Sighing, Bill rested his chin on a hand and closed his eyes again. It took a conscious act of will to dispel Adam’s image completely and see nothing but perfect darkness behind his eyelids.

“Comforting,” he muttered. Then, opening one eye, he added, “There isn’t any chance to rescind, is there?”

_No._

He sighed heavily. “I thought as much.”

_It is surprising that you accept that so readily._

Bill opened his eyes fully and lifted his chin from his hand. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I? It’s obvious that you won’t let me dissolve our contract, I’m stuck like this, and you, for the foreseeable future, are living in my head. You’ve put me in a rather difficult position, Adam, so of course I would be ready to accept this.”

_You have no idea how much of a pleasure it is to hear you say that. Perhaps now we can put our efforts into more constructive endeavors._

Closing his eyes again, Bill propped his chin on his hand once more. He had tuned Adam out partway through the creature’s response, and now, his thoughts were turned back to more pressing matters. Matters, that is, that involved a certain red-head.

_No response? Bill, you must listen. We should discuss our plans for the near future._

“Unless it has anything to do with Lanette’s impending arrival or the matter concerning my sister and the people in this town, I don’t care,” Bill muttered.

_All of those matters are irrelevant. We must leave this town at once._

Bill opened his eyes halfway again and frowned deeply. “Oh. Well, in that case, no, I don’t care.”

At that point, he felt something cold slither around his brain. He shuddered and winced, but at the same time, he tried not to think about what he was feeling. Bill knew, though. He knew that it had to be the tendrils of Adam’s self flicking across his skull. His stomach turned at the thought of the root-like system that grew from the parasite when it attached to him. And he most certainly tried not to think about those tendrils, an entire organ system that wasn’t his but instead something else’s, writhing just beneath his metal skin.

_Bill,_ Adam said, _you are fighting a futile battle by attempting to enlist the help of these humans. It is quite a predicament that you find yourself in, is it not? Your sister, the mute, who screams at the sight of you. The woman who was once your closest companion kills our kind in cold blood. An officer of human law who believes you to be a mindless monster. It is far better to give up than it is to continue this struggle to get them to trust you._

To say that Bill would have paid attention to Adam either way would be a complete lie, but at least that time, he had a reason to ignore the creature. A familiar scent caught his nose partway through Adam’s lecture. It was a flowery, earthy scent, one that now lacked the sour, metallic bite of fear. He knew this scent, and it came as a mild relief that it was here.

_Are you listening to me?_ Adam asked. _I am telling you something important._

He wasn’t, and he didn’t care. All he focused on was the growing feeling of excitement in his heart. She was here. She was here, most likely of her own volition. Bill swung his head towards the door to catch a glimpse of her: half a face peeking around the corner, a body half hidden by the wall, and a small hand gripping the doorframe. But just as suddenly as he moved, she jumped and stiffened, her visible eye widening as far as it would go. Then, she vanished, slipping out of sight beyond the doorway.

“Raye,” Bill whispered.

As soon as he moved to go after her, his entire body seized, and he toppled off the medical pod and crashed onto the floor. Wincing, he strained himself to move, only to feel the tendrils all over his body constrict his bones. They pulsed with cold electricity, forcing his muscles to seize in paralysis. His throat vibrated in a strangled cry as he doubled over, pressing his forehead into the floor.

_You will not ignore me,_ Adam hissed.

Bill turned his head, grinding his forehead against the tile. “Let me go.”

_No. You must listen. The longer you remain here, the more danger you place yourself in. You must leave this town. We must carry out our plan. If you do not—_

“Let. Me. Go!” Bill shouted.

Without thinking, he slammed his fist into the floor. He didn’t even notice the way it fizzled with energy, the way it took on a brilliant, silver shine, or the way the floor yielded and cracked beneath his punch. All he noticed was that the net under his skin suddenly released, giving him the opportunity to move. He didn’t even stop to think about why; instead, he scrambled forward on all fours until he could launch himself back to his feet.

“Raye!” he shouted. “Raye! Wait!”

He skidded at the door and reached out and grab the doorframe. Using the leftover momentum from his run, he swung himself around, sliding gracefully into the lobby …

… Only to find it empty.

Bill took a few gasps of air to catch his breath. Raye’s scent lingered on each inhale, but the more Bill breathed in, the more he began to notice that it hung in different places. Furrowing his eyebrows, he leaned towards the wall and pressed his nose to separate parts of the doorframe. Where Raye had placed her hand when he caught a glimpse of her, the scent was the strongest and heaviest. But then, there were other places on the doorframe that smelled like her, but the flowery, earthy scent painted on each of the other spots were weaker, as if someone had sprayed perfume heavily on one spot but then gave the rest of the doorframe a light spritz. It didn’t seem like much, but to Bill, it told him only one thing.

“She was here more than once,” he said to himself.

Leaning towards the door, Bill peered into the room he had just left. His eyes fell on the medical pod, and he realized Raye would have had a clear view of it from her spot at the door.

“Was she watching me?” he asked.

_Of course she was,_ Adam replied. _What else on this planet of yours did you think she was doing?_

Ignoring the pokémon, Bill pushed away from the doorframe and sniffed the air again. When he caught Raye’s scent, he began to follow it towards the door leading to the trainers’ dormitories.

“Raye?” he called. “Raye, it’s me, Nii-chan! I just want to talk to you!”

No answer. He pushed through the door to the hallway beyond it, only to find that it, too, was completely empty. However, Raye’s scent still hung in the air, and much to his relief, it was a little fresher than the one in the lobby. She had been through here only recently. Either that, or it was a place where she frequently passed. Bill bent down to where he thought was her height and took another breath. Although her scent filled the corridor, he could detect the strongest of it heading in a straight line directly in front of him. It was that stream that he followed, but he did so slowly, with deliberate, careful movements. He wasn’t about to scare her off again. That much he decided.

“Raye, please!” he begged. “I won’t hurt you! You must believe me!”

Her scent led him to a closed door several feet down the hall. If this place was like the other pokémon centers he had been in, Bill knew that beyond the door was a bedroom trainers used for overnight stays. It could be locked from the inside, but Bill didn’t bother to check. He had a good feeling that it was, and even if it wasn’t, he knew opening that door and barging into the room would accomplish nothing but startle his sister. So instead, he pressed up against it, taking in her scent. It was the strongest there, and every part of the door smelled like her. This had to be the room she was given when the people of Fallarbor brought her up from Lavaridge.

But there was another scent on the door that Bill couldn’t quite pin on anyone he knew. It was a scent that smelled like metal and wet dog fur. For some reason, that, more than the fear of scaring his sister, made him pause.

“Raye?” he asked, this time a little softer than the voice he had used to call her earlier. “Raye … listen. I’m sorry about all of this. I’m sorry that I scared you, and I’m sorry that you went through everything that happened to you. But I promise you, I’ll see to it that you’re safe from now on. Just please, open the door.”

For a long while, there was nothing but silence. In response, Bill heaved another heavy sigh and thumped his forehead against the door’s surface. His eyes shut tightly, and he shook his head, grinding his forehead into the wood.

“Who am I kidding?” he groaned. “She’s not going to listen to me.”

He opened his eyes slightly and turned his head once more. His mouth opened, poised to ask Adam about whatever plan he was meant to follow, but before he could get a word out, his ear caught something. He shifted, pressing the side of his face into the door until he could hear it: a low, guttural growl. The growl of a dog.

And then, it clicked. Smell of electricity and wet dog. A dog that could use electrical attacks.

A manectric.

“Oh blazes,” Bill gasped.

He stumbled backwards, just in time to avoid being struck with the door as it flung open. A blue and yellow blur dashed out of the room and slammed into him. The force of impact sent him skidding backwards until he flung his hands out to either side of him and ground his claws into the wall. Looking up, he could see the manectric crouch low, ready to spring forward again. A short scream escaped Bill’s throat as he flung his arm out in an arc in front of him. A Protect flared to life around his body as he whirled around and dashed for the door, but before he could reach it, a crack of thunder nearly deafened him. Electricity struck his barrier dead-on, and the attack and his protection exploded in a flash of yellow and green light all around him. Blinded by the flash, he smashed his back against the wall and shielded himself by crossing his arms in front of his face. Beneath him, his feet tripped over themselves in the confusion of brightness, and before he could stop himself, he slammed his side into the floor. Realizing at once what position he had put himself in, Bill yelped and squirmed onto his back, only to have the electric dog pounce on him. It stood on his chest, teeth bared in a menacing growl as it peered down into his face. Bill shook and whimpered, his brain seizing at once with terror.

“Okay, Manectric!” a voice called from down the hall. “Give him the good ol’ slurp!”

Bill flinched, shutting his eyes tightly. He had no idea what the trainer was talking about, but he had a feeling it was going to be immensely painful. Above him, he could hear the manectric bark in confirmation. He could sense its paws shift on his chest. He could smell the electrified air that surrounded its body.

And then, he could feel the hot wetness of a tongue dragging across his cheek.

Astonished, Bill opened his eyes and stared up at the muzzle of a smiling dog. The manectric tilted its head back and forth as it emitted a curious bark. Immediately afterwards, it stuck its nose in Bill’s face and continued to lick every feature it could reach. Bill flinched again, this time in an attempt to avoid letting the dog lick his mouth or eyes.

“What?” he muttered through a half-open mouth.

The response to his question came in the form of a sudden booming laughter. Bill opened his eyes again and sat up, prompting the manectric to jump off his chest and bounce back towards its trainer. At the same time, Bill blinked, staring at the portly young man who had attacked him the kitchen. All the while, Raye stood, visibly shaking and partially hidden behind the trainer’s back.

“Oh man,” the trainer said. “You should’ve seen the look on your face! You were all like, ‘Oh noes!’ And Manectric was like, ‘Grr, I’m a mighty manectric!’ And then you were like, ‘Ah!’ And then Manectric nailed you, and …!”

The man’s speech trailed off into raucous laughter. Bill couldn’t help but stare dumbfounded at this reaction, and he had a feeling, judging by his symbiont’s silence, that Adam was just as stunned as he was.

Eventually, the trainer wiped the corners of his eyes and said, “Oh man. That was good. Anyway, hi! I’m Thom Wattson, only son of the Wattsons of Mauville. You probably know about my grandpa, the former gym leader there? No? Well, in any case, you apparently know Raye, which is awesome.” He extended a hand. “Uh … you okay? I didn’t spook you too badly, did I?”

Bill stared at Thom’s hand for a long while. In fact, he had been staring rather blankly at Thom in general for the past minute that it took the trainer to finish speaking. It was just that he now had a specific point on Thom’s person to channel his utter confusion.

“Oh man.” Thom rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand. “I think I overdid it. Nurse Joy’s gonna kill me for frying your brain.”

“No, uh,” Bill said, quickly shaking his head to dispel the rest of his shock. “I’m … I’m okay.” Then, he struggled to stand, using the wall as leverage. “You just surprised me. That’s all. It’s … it’s nice to meet you, Thom. My name is Bill.”

“Nice to meet ya!” he exclaimed in response. Then, glancing down at his still outstretched hand, he added, “Uh. Shaking’s not a thing you do when you meet people?”

Bill blinked at him. “Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but I highly doubt that would be a good idea.” He held up one of his hands to emphasize this point, allowing Thom to view his claws and the razor-sharp plating.

In response, Thom burst out laughing again and withdrew his hand. “Oh man! That’s so awesome, but I get you.”

Still confused by this man’s demeanor, Bill tilted his head. Thom wasn’t the strangest person he had ever met, but he ranked somewhere on Bill’s list. Seemingly oblivious to his companion’s dumbfounded glance, Thom swung his hands up in the air and smiled broadly at the ixodida.

“Anyway, wow! You guys really _do_ recover quickly!” he boomed. “Man, you were in bad shape when Nurse Joy started in on you. She’s really a miracle worker, y’know? Of course, I didn’t think I could do that much damage. I’m not much of a trainer, but I guess that’s what you get when you use a gym leader’s former pokémon, right? Anyway, wow, I wonder if it was Nurse Joy who got you up and about. Or was it just because you’re an ixodida? I’ve heard stories about the ixodida healing from anything, but I’ve never seen it myself. I was lucky enough to be evacuated from Mauville before the ixodida took it over. Not that I blame you or anything! You’re not like other ixodida, from what I heard. I mean, man, Nurse Joy said you were polite and friendly when you woke up. ‘Course, she didn’t say it to _me_ , but I couldn’t help overhearing from where I was out in the lobby. I’ve gotta keep an eye on Rachel, y’know? Officer Jenny assigned me as her personal bodyguard, after all. Or, okay, she didn’t exactly _assign_ me to the position, but—”

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Bill could feel Adam stir in his head. _Bill, must we continue to listen to this boy’s prattling? We are wasting time._

Bill looked up and clenched his teeth. He resisted every temptation to respond, not only because he didn’t want to verbally acknowledge the parasite in front of others but also because Thom had just said something of interest to him. If this man was Raye’s bodyguard—or otherwise close to her—as he claimed to be, then perhaps he knew more about Raye than anyone else in town.

Barring Lanette, of course. Bill felt a slight twinge in his chest when he realized that the longer he stood there listening to Thom, the closer he was to the moment when Lanette would arrive, and he still didn’t have any plan for what to say to her. And if she was, as Nurse Joy said, an ixodida killer, then that was more than a slight cause for concern.

His eyes fell on Raye until they locked gazes. As soon as Bill looked into her eyes, Raye jumped and tucked herself completely behind the still rambling trainer. That alone turned the twinge in Bill’s core into a sinking feeling. If he hoped to help his sister, he had to survive, and he needed as many allies as he could get in order to ensure that would happen.

So, with a frown, he decided that the answer to Adam’s question was absolutely. If he was going to survive in this town, then he needed intel, and it sounded like Thom had just the right connections to be his inside man, so to speak. Part of him felt a little guilty about seeing a potential friendship that way, but … perhaps that was how Adam felt. Forming relationships out of necessity, out of a desperate drive to continue living.

Adam was suspiciously silent at that point. Bill only noticed right then, right as that thought about why Adam was so keen on using him crossed his mind. He glanced towards the ceiling once again, wondering for the first time if Adam cared about him as a person more than he thought.

But then, he dispelled his musings to focus on Thom’s words. If he had to forge a friendship with this man, he needed to listen.

It was right then that Thom’s talk took a completely different turn, however.

“Or maybe it’s because you finally ate something,” Thom wondered aloud. “I mean, Nurse Joy said you hadn’t fed for a long time before we found you. Maybe that’s why you were so easy to beat. No offense, of course! I mean, yeah, food makes a difference; I should know! But man, was it hard to find something an ixodida would eat. They say you eat meat, right? Like, raw meat and everything? They find a lot of dead pokémon and animals around where you guys camp out. So I was thinking, you know, you kinda look like a cat, and Nurse Joy said your dietary needs or whatever would probably be like a carnivorous animal’s, and a cat’s a carnivore, so I went all over town and collected up as much food as I could. You know, it took three cans to fill up just one bowl! And we probably have to feed you more than once a day! I don’t know how long we can keep feeding you at that rate, but I guess that, since none of us really have any cat pokémon ...”

Bill blinked. He had no idea what this discussion was about, and part of him was screaming a warning to the rest of his mind that he shouldn’t ask. But unfortunately, the ever-curious scientist in him won out.

“Er … three cans of what exactly?” he asked timidly.

Thom held his hands palm-sides up, as if what he was about to say was incredibly obvious. “Cat food, of course!”

Abruptly, all of the conscious thought processes going through Bill’s head went completely dead except for the memory of the pate. Suddenly, he remembered exactly where he had seen that same type of food: in the pet food bowls he used to give his eevee when he was still a human.

And to that, Bill could only respond with one word.

“ _What?_ ”

* * *

Several minutes and a few dry heaves later, Bill had finally dragged himself into the lobby with an apologizing Thom and a silent Raye in tow. Right then, he sat on one of the disused couches in the waiting area with his hands wrapped around a glass of water. Thom sat on adjacent couch with his manectric’s head in his lap, and Raye stood in the doorway to the hall, her hands curled tightly around the doorframe. Every so often, Bill took a sip from the glass and glanced at Raye, but this act that always led her to yelp and half-close the door to hide all but a sliver of herself. Bill had already given up on trying to communicate directly with Raye; his attention had shifted instead to figuring out a way to connect with Thom and, hopefully, gain his trust enough to prove to Raye that there was nothing to worry about.

“Figuring out,” of course, was the key phrase in this instance. It never really occurred to Bill just how rusty his social skills towards non-researchers were until he tried and failed miserably to start a conversation with a thoroughly embarrassed Thom. And for that reason, the past few minutes had been spent in utter silence.

Eventually, he surrendered and went for the most straightforward route he could find.

“Thom,” he said, “tell me about Lanette.”

The trainer perked up, as if he hadn’t expected Bill to speak to him so casually. Thom gazed at the ixodida in wide-eyed wonder before breaking into a smile.

“Hey! You’re really not angry about the whole cat food—”

Bill quickly held up a hand. “Uh. Why don’t we forget about that?”

“Right, right!” Thom said, nodding quickly. “So. Lanette, huh? Why do you want to know about her?”

With a glance towards the windows at the front of the center, Bill replied, “She’s coming.”

Abruptly, Thom leapt to his feet and balled his hands into fists that he held in front of him. His manectric, at the same time, toppled off the couch and landed on the floor with a thud, where it rose to all fours and growled menacingly.

“She’s coming?!” Thom demanded. “Here?! Oh man, you are so screwed! Why didn’t you tell me?! We’ve got to hide you!”

Thom snatched Bill’s arm and began pulling. Startled by the act, Bill whipped his head back towards Thom and grasped the couch with his opposite hand. Part of the cushions were instantly shredded as Bill rose slightly off his seat, but leaning back, he was able to yank his arm free from Thom’s grasp.

“Wait! Wait! You have it all wrong! I asked for her to come!” Bill exclaimed.

Although Thom stopped attempting to grab Bill and run, he still stared down at his companion with a panicked look at that statement. “Why would you do that?! Oh man! Oh man! You are so dead!”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Bill replied calmly. “Thom, Lanette and I are old friends. I knew her before I was changed and before Hoenn was quarantined. We were close, and while Lanette might have been a little stern, she was never the kind of person who would hurt someone, let alone kill them.”

Thom shook his head and slapped his hands onto Bill’s shoulders. “Oh man, you don’t get it! Lanette’s stern, yeah, but she’s only nice to humans. She hates ixodida! With a passion, bro!”

Bill tilted his head and arched an eyebrow. None of this made sense. Lanette never hated anything. Sure, Bill had seen her angry and annoyed, but she was never violent and certainly not dangerous to be around. Not to mention why would she want to hurt him? After all, embarrassingly enough, she was the one most likely to nag him about things he was doing to hurt himself. If he had forgotten to eat, it was Lanette who would lecture him about how he operated when his blood sugar levels crashed. If he was up at six in the morning, it was Lanette who would ask him if he had slept and, if the answer was no, if he knew exactly what a lack of sleep was doing to his brain processes. If he mentioned that he had suffered a minor injury or if he was working through the mildest of colds, it was Lanette who would talk his ear off about how much he needed to rest or how much he needed to be careful and take care of himself. While Bill had gotten into plenty of trouble and survived even without Lanette’s help, she was always concerned about him, not waiting for him to kill himself. So it didn’t make sense to Bill that this Lanette, the one who was apparently the lead hunter of Fallarbor Town, hated his new species and would potentially kill him on sight.

It was just that the people of Fallarbor didn’t know that he wasn’t an ordinary ixodida. That must have been it; they had no idea who he was or what he was to Lanette. If they knew, perhaps they wouldn’t be so concerned.

With that thought in mind, Bill gave Thom a hesitant smile, but even then, something about this situation didn’t sit well with him. He had just told Thom about his relationship with Lanette, and the trainer still gave him the same response. Perhaps it was just that Thom was easily excitable, but Bill still wanted the reassurance that Lanette wasn’t a threat to him.

So he tried another angle.

“Thom, Nurse Joy said Lanette is your lead hunter,” he said. “What does that mean?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Thom pulled away to sit back down on the couch. He patted the seat next to him as a signal to Manectric, and once it jumped onto the couch cushions, Thom stroked the dog’s crest to calm his nerves before he began. “Guess you wouldn’t, would you? Anyway, you know how we have these parties that go out and look for survivors and stuff, right?”

Bill nodded and trained his eyes on the manectric. “Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny said something about that, yes.”

“Well.” Thom rubbed his chin. “Those teams are made up of bunches of people with different roles. You have the scouts, usually the people with flying-type pokémon or pokémon that are fast and stealthy. They go ahead of the party, look for any ixodida that might be along the way, and come back to report to the others. Then there’re the medics, the people with pokémon that can heal others, and they do what you’d think they do, but they also cook and pitch camp or break camp. The guards are a couple of people with a lot of pokémon; they stay behind and guard the camp. Or you have guards like me, who stay behind and protect the town. Scavengers go into towns to round up survivors and lead them back to camp, or they go in and collect as many supplies as they can carry. They usually have fighting or psychic-type pokémon to do the gathering and dog-like pokémon to do the searching. And then you have the hunters. They’re the ones with the best fighting skills or the strongest pokémon, and their job is to go out whenever the scout says there’s an ixodida nest. And, y’know, they just kill everything they find.”

“I see,” Bill replied. He bowed his head and stared at the floor. “And … and Lanette?”

“Lanette came to town way before they found me,” Thom explained. “In fact, she was a hunter in the party that cleared out Mauville. So I don’t know all of the details to her story, but I know that Mauville used to have parties like ours before they were all pretty much killed off by the ixodida. One of the last parties there found her around what was left of Fortree and brought her to Mauville, but when the Fallarbor teams found out about her, they immediately came down to bring her up here. I didn’t meet her then, but I heard she was in pretty bad shape, kinda like how Rachel is now. Next time I saw her, though? She was this massive hard-ass. Don’t tell her I said that, by the way. But yeah, she basically runs things around here because she’s the smartest, she’s got the best fighting skills, and no one knows more about an ixodida’s weak points than her. People just listen to her because she knows what to do, y’know? But also, I think a lot of us are kinda afraid of her because she’s just way too hardcore into her job. They say she volunteered to be a hunter, and she became the best hunter in town by her third trip out. And even though I’ve never been on a trip myself, I know that, y’know, the people who go on them? They say the only time Lanette laughs is when she kills ‘em.”

Bill looked up at that and leaned back in his seat. A shiver went through his entire body, and shakily, he grinned again. Because he focused all of his attention on trying to understand Thom’s story, he didn’t notice the sound of the pokémon center’s doors whirring open.

“You’re … you’re kidding,” he said. “That can’t be true. There’s no way Lanette of all people would take that much pleasure in killing someone.”

Thom raised a hand. “Right hand up to Jirachi, man. She laughs when she kills an ixodida. They say she hates them so much they have to remind her she’s not a scout to keep her from running off into the countryside and going on some kind of ixodida hunting spree.”

Bill couldn’t help but force a chuckle. Or, rather, to be more accurate, he could help it, but he felt like laughing at what Thom said would make it a little less possible. “You’re joshing me. Lanette? On a killing spree?”

The next instant went by so quickly that Bill could barely process what happened. Thom opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, what felt like a wind burst through the lobby of the pokémon center. Something yanked Bill to his feet and off the floor, but it felt like the air itself grabbed him and hoisted every part of his body painfully off the ground. He gasped for breath, fingers clutching at his neck where the pressure was the tensest.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Thom’s manectric jumping onto the floor and crouching into a fighting stance while behind it, Thom moved to stand. Several feet in front of them, a spinda leapt onto the couch, already launching into its first move before Thom could get a word out. The red-and-white panda danced to a beat that only it could hear, swaying its arms in an pendulous motion as it stomped from foot to foot on the couch. Right away, Bill recognized it as Teeter Dance, but he could do nothing but watch in horror as Thom and Manectric fell for it immediately. Thom, unable to resist the spinda, immediately began babbling incoherently as he mimicked the bear’s movements until he spilled over the couch and onto the floor behind it. Manectric, meanwhile, swayed on all four paws, barking and howling at random until it bashed its head into a coffee table and crumpled into a heap on the floor. Realizing that both of his potential saviors were out of commission, Bill squirmed in mid-air, struggling to free himself from the mysterious hold.

Only then, only when he tore his eyes away from Thom and Manectric and looked straight ahead, did he realize what was the cause of his trouble. Right in front of the door, a solrock calmly hung, its eyes glowing with a bright, blue light as it stared directly at Bill. Underneath it was the first and last person Bill had hoped to see.

The young woman looked like she went through Hell. Her straight, fire-orange hair hung loosely around her shoulders, but the way it was cut, with its choppy, messy ends, made it look like she had done the job herself. Her green dress was torn in several places along the sleeves, and the skirt, one that came down to her knees, looked like she had patched together several different dresses in a futile repair job. The knee-high, brown military boots she wore were covered with several stains, some of which glowed suspiciously with what Bill hoped wasn’t the blood of ixodida parasites. Belts were latched around her waist and across her chest, and strapped to her back via this system was a rusty crowbar covered with dried blood. Her sleeves were long and dark gray, which only seemed to accentuate the pale scars up and down her arms where the material was ripped. But most of all, there was her face. Her glasses, somehow, were intact, but behind them were a pair of expressionless hazel eyes. In fact, the only shred of expression on her long face was a small frown across her thin lips.

Bill knew this girl. He knew that she was half a year older than he was, yet they met when they were both freshmen in college. He knew that she liked to collect dolls and that when she got wrapped up in her research, she often forgot to keep her laboratory organized. He also knew that she spoke French when she was frustrated, that she hated horror films because she got scared easily, and that she was better than he could ever be at developing a graphical user interface.

Or, at least, that was the Lanette he knew. This woman, meanwhile, both looked like Lanette and looked nothing like her. Her features were all the same, but it was the emotion that separated her from his closest companion. Just by staring into those expressionless eyes, Bill knew he wasn’t looking at his Lanette: he was looking at the lead hunter of Fallarbor Town. The ixodida killer.

And he knew, right then, that she was going to kill him.

“I do not laugh when I kill an ixodida,” she told him icily. “I do not gain pleasure at all from interacting with your kind. I only kill you because it helps me sleep at night.”

She lifted a hand, reaching her fingers out towards Bill. Instantly, the force holding him in the air threw him across the room. He slammed his back into one of the center’s PCs, shattering the machine as soon as he collided with it. Plastic and metal and sparks rained down on him as he crashed to the floor, twisting and screaming. His memory went hazy for the briefest of seconds, and when it cleared, he found himself desperately scrambling forward on his hands and knees, away from wreckage of the PC.

“L-Lanette,” he rasped.

The invisible force seized him and flipped him onto his back. He cried out as the air itself pressed down on him, as what felt like several graveler sat on his limbs to pin him to the floor. Then, the psychic energy dragged him upwards, scraping his back and tail against the floor and wall until it held him, arms out and legs straight down, next to the doorway to the trainer’s dormitories. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to look forward just in time to see Lanette crossing the room quietly. One of her hands reached up to pull the crowbar from its makeshift holster, and she twirled it like a baton before pointing the straight end at Bill. His eyes fell on it, and in his terror, he saw that the straight end had been filed down to a point—to a blade pointed directly at his heart. Lanette stopped at just the right distance to touch him with the tip of her crowbar held at arm’s length, and from there, she pointed her weapon up until it grazed his adam’s apple, just below his collar.

“You have his face,” she commented. “Why?”

Bill hesitated, not because of her question but instead because he felt Adam. The net under his skin shifted, and the presence in his brain twisted. He could almost hear a growl in his head, and he knew at once that Adam was threatening to activate the clause he had unwittingly agreed to. At that moment, Bill knew that within the next few minutes, either Lanette would kill him, or Adam would force him to kill Lanette.

And here he was, unable to so much as speak to her in order to convey a warning, not that she would listen to him anyway. His eyes stung at that realization, and his vision blurred with tears.

“Lanette,” he whispered.

In the colorful haze that his world had become, he could just make out Lanette shifting the pointed end of the crowbar down. He couldn’t feel its tip scraping against his armor, but he heard it, screeching little by little until it came to rest on the jewel over his heart, the only thing he _could_ feel. In his head, the growl grew louder, and gradually, he began to lose feeling in his extremities.

“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded, although he wasn’t entirely sure of whether he meant it for Lanette or Adam.

Lanette, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes and ignored Bill’s words completely. “Tell me. Who are you and why do you know my name?”

It was right then that Bill, for the first time in his life, found that he couldn’t respond to someone’s question.

* * *

Fallarbor Town and the valley that surrounded it sat in the shadow of two mountains. The first was Mt. Meteor, home of the cave system known as Meteor Falls, and the second was Mt. Chimney, the active volcano at the heart of Hoenn. Although Hoennians have always seen puffs of smoke and clouds of ash rising from Mt. Chimney’s peak, they knew that the volcano was relatively safe; the last eruption, after all, occurred over five hundred years ago, back when Entei was said to have been born. Since then, Mt. Chimney had slept, regulated by the resident slugma and magcargo, and in its shadow, the fields of Route 113 lay beneath a thick, gray coat of volcanic ash.

It was that day, at the same time as Bill’s struggle against the solrock of an angry hunter, that the volcanic ash was stirred by an unnatural wind. It swirled in a funnel, rising higher and higher until it looped around the white boots of a Rocket field agent who landed swiftly and elegantly in the soft grass. Around her, the thick dust billowed outwards, forming waves of gray and white in the exhaust of her jetpack until she cut the engine and let the ash fall as a ring-shaped smog. Standing, Domino squinted at the obscured sun and scoffed.

“Ugh. I hate Hoenn. It’s so …” She kicked the grass with her ash-covered boots. “… Dirty.”

Heaving a disgruntled sigh, Domino dusted herself off and reached up to pull a square, black device from under her cap. Her fingers prodded its glassy face to wake it up and summon several app buttons onto its screen. Tapping one, Domino brought up a map of Hoenn with two red blips of light in its northwest corner, and with a few gestures, she zoomed in until she could see each label.

“Hmm. Fallarbor Town is …” Turning, Domino faced due west and glanced down at the device again. “… About three miles that way. And McKenzie is currently located in its pokémon center, six blocks in from the eastern limits. Perfect. This’ll be easy. It’s just a matter of sneaking in, capturing him, and sneaking back out to the rendezvous point. With how backwater this region is, I might not even need cover.”

She reached up into her cap again, this time pulling free a cellphone. Flipping it open, she moved her fingers to punch in a number, but she didn’t get far enough to place her call. Behind her, several low snarls rose into the air, causing her to stop partway through dialing. Cautiously, she turned and watched the ash shift a short distance from her. It rose in spikes and twisting shapes until, at last, several heads rose from the grass. Several very human-like heads, that is, with rounded horns shaped like cat ears. And all of them had mouths that opened to reveal inch-long, needle-sharp fangs. Turning, Domino shoved both devices back under her cap and whipped her arm out. Her tulip baton snapped into her hand and telescoped as she swept her eyes around the field. More heads rose all around her, each with open, snarling faces.

Except for one. One figure rose to its feet, exposing the sand-colored plates that ran down its front. Spikes covered its back and head, overlapping to give the creature a porcupine look. It clicked its long, bone claws together as it stared down at Domino with piercing, blue eyes.

And then, it extended one slender arm to her.

“A scout,” it intoned. “Kill her.”

At that, Domino’s eyes narrowed. “Great.”

As the ixodida lunged at her, she twirled her baton in the air and slammed its stem into the ground. She inhaled deeply while above her, blue powder billowed from the blossom and engulfed her attackers. By the time it settled, the ixodida nearest to her fell to the ground in a deep sleep, causing the others to stumble over their brethren. They fumbled just long enough for Domino to flip her jetpack’s engine on, and in the next few seconds, Domino leapt into the air and flew away, heading due west and towards civilization.

All the while, the lone speaking ixodida craned its neck and narrowed its blue eyes at the fleeing Rocket. Then, it shifted its claw towards not only Domino but also Fallarbor Town.

“Follow her,” it rumbled.

Without hesitation, each of the remaining ixodida turned towards the town and screeched in unison.


	11. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the word "monster" is bandied about a lot.

**Ten**

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 9_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: FILE_  
 _DESIGNATION: PROJECT STARDUST SUBJECT, FILE 03_  
 _DESCRIPTION: FIRST DRAFT OF D.E.V.A. CONTAINMENT FILE FOR INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS 2000KH-B/03, CODENAME ABEL._  
 _DATE-TIME: FILE CREATION, 10/10/02, 09:36_

_SUBJECT ID #: SE-650_  
 _CODE NAME: ABEL_  
 _CURRENT LOCATION: POLARIS INSTITUTE, CINNABAR ISLAND, KANTO_  
 _OBJECT CLASS: II, PENDING APPROVAL_  
 _CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: PENDING_  
 _DESCRIPTION: Electric-type SE-650 (“ixodida”). Armed with bio-thorns and ranged electrical attacks._  
 _KNOWN MOVES: Thunder, Discharge, Shock Wave, Thunder Wave_  
 _CURRENT STATUS: Captive, Polaris Institute. Security top priority. WARNING—Considered highly dangerous. Contain by any means necessary. Caution highly advised._  
 _NOTES: Creation may be linked to Adam Incident (SEE FULL REPORT, LINKED.) Investigation authorized by C-01._

* * *

“Answer me,” Lanette growled.

The crowbar’s straighter end was still dangerously close to Bill’s chest. He felt it, the point scratching the surface of his core lightly. Warmth pulsed from the jewel in his chest, flowing like boiling water into the rest of his torso. Bill didn’t have to read the parasite’s mind to know exactly what that meant: that Adam was not just angry. Rather, it was enraged. A wordless threat pulsed in Bill’s brain. It didn’t have any sound, any words. Bill could simply feel it in the numbness in his arms, in the gathering darkness on the edges of his field of vision, in the crawling beneath his skin. The parasite was enraged, and it was just seconds away from doing something incredibly terrible.

_Bill, act,_ Adam demanded. _Do not allow me to interpret this as a life-threatening situation._

“I know,” Bill whispered. “I just ...”

Lanette pressed into the bar, and Bill could feel the tip push harder on the surface of the jewel. His hands balled into fists without his consent. He glanced at one of them through the corner of his eye as he frantically scrambled to put his thoughts into words.

“Answer me,” Lanette repeated, this time louder and gruffer.

Bill turned his eyes back to his companion, to his friend, to the person on this planet that he trusted more than anyone else.

“Lanette,” he whispered. “Lanette, please. Please, you must believe m—”

A crack of electricity filled Bill’s ears, a white light temporarily blinded him, and the smell of wet gravel and copper filled his nose. Manectric apparently had moved, and that was the worst thing it could have done. This was largely because the force around Bill released as a direct result of this attack, but nothing prevented him from falling into Lanette’s weapon. So he did. And the curved, pointed end of Lanette’s crowbar, the part she held steadily, quickly met his throat.

In the next instant, all Bill could perceive was white-hot pain radiating from his neck and chin. He wanted to scream, but his jaw was literally jammed shut. Instead, he heard Lanette’s sharp yelp, followed closely by the world tipping over on its side. He couldn’t even feel himself hit the floor, but he could feel the blood. A flood of it, gushing out of his neck and flowing down the smooth plating of his front at first. But then, when the world tipped over, it began to flow sideways into a puddle around his body, and he could feel the hot, sticky wetness soak into his face. It filled his throat and mouth too, and his body spasmed in closed-mouth coughs. He could hear the whistle of his breath, feel the coldness of the air passing in and out of the tear; it stung on levels Bill didn’t even think pain could reach. And the pain—the _pain_. It wasn’t just agonizing. It was never-ending. So as what felt like an eternity passed, he could only shiver in pure, blinding agony. He couldn’t think. Time did not exist for him. His senses could barely register anything other than what he felt in his neck.

And then, he blinked. He wasn’t sure how long he blinked, but he knew that the world went black for a moment.

_You truly are a hopeless creature,_ Adam growled. _This would be far easier if you listened to my advice._

Bill suddenly rediscovered his ability to move, and at that point, he used it to curl up into a fetal position.

_Breathe, you idiot._

Shuddering, Bill followed Adam’s direction without a second thought. He breathed, but this time, he couldn’t feel air passing into his throat through his neck. In fact, with each breath, the pain ebbed away until he was released from its grasp. Carefully, shakily, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and lifted a trembling hand to his throat. Under his fingertips, he could feel the ragged edge of the wound push against his touch. Drawing his hand away from his throat, he turned it until the jewel in his palm revealed his reflection. There, he saw the wound on his throat—the long, ugly hole up his neck and under his chin and collar—close up and vanish as if it was never there.

“W-what?” he mumbled.

_For a scientist, you certainly have a terrible habit of not listening,_ Adam commented. _Were you not paying attention when your new companions told you that my kind can heal from any wound? This is technically not true, but we can heal from many injuries that would be fatal to humans._

Bill grasped his throat carefully, feeling the tender, new skin beneath the jewel in his palm. “What?!”

_By the way, I do believe you are in the middle of a battle. Perhaps it would be wise to begin paying attention to your surroundings, Bill._

Swinging his head back towards the seating area, Bill squinted until he could focus on the scene before him. He must not have been distracted for long; from the looks of it, the struggle between Lanette and Thom had just gotten started. To be more accurate, he could see Lanette’s spinda lying in a twitching, slightly smoking heap just a few feet away from him. Beyond it, Thom’s manectric pinned Lanette’s solrock face-down on the floor using all four paws, and every time the living rock so much as twitched, the dog fired another round of electricity straight into its craggy body. The trainers themselves, meanwhile, were on the floor in the far corner of the lobby. Lanette sat on top of Thom’s stomach, her crowbar straight against the man’s shoulders. Both of their hands were on her weapon, and all of their knuckles were white as they pushed against each other in a frantic struggle. All the while, Thom was crying out, his words melting into an incoherent babble of “please” and “stop” while Lanette silently pressed all her weight into her weapon.

“Lanette,” Bill gasped. Then, launching himself onto his feet without a second thought, he bolted towards her. “Lanette, stop!”

She faltered. It was slight and subtle, but it was crucial. Her hands relaxed. Her shoulders tensed in the wrong way. Her arms went just a little slack. It wasn’t so much a moment of relaxation as it was a misdirection of power, one that allowed Thom to push her off him and yank her crowbar out of her hands. In the next second, Bill grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist as he dragged her away from Thom. She screeched and flailed, elbowing Bill in the shoulder and kicking him in his ankle until he finally pulled her down to the floor. Before she could get away, he twisted, pulling himself on top of her until his knees framed her waist, his hands pinned her arms down at the elbow, and his tail wrapped tightly around her legs.

Thom sat up, gasping for breath as he gripped Lanette’s crowbar in one hand. “H-hey. How did you … you were … you okay?”

“You’re welcome,” Bill said, keeping his eyes trained on Lanette. “I’m fine. It’s strange on more than one level, I know, but I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Thom asked. “You were stabbed in the neck. Like … you were stabbed in the neck five seconds ago.”

At that, Bill flashed him a quick smirk. “You said ixodida recover quickly, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but ...” Thom rubbed the back of his neck. “Holy crap. I … I mean … huh. _Damn._ ” He numbly let his chin fall as he held up the crowbar. “Uh. What can I … anything I can do?”

Flinching as Lanette thrashed under him, Bill bent his head down. “Just hold onto that right now. I need a moment.”

Nodding, Thom stood. He gripped the crowbar in both hands as he stared down at the scene on the floor. After a few seconds, Bill lifted his chin slightly to stare directly into Lanette’s eyes.

“Lanette, stop it,” he said firmly. “It’s me.”

“Let me go,” she barked.

“Not until you listen to what I have to say.”

Lifting her head off the floor, Lanette snapped, “Let me go, you monster!”

Bill flinched at the loudness of her voice so close to his ear. “I’m not a monster. Lanette, you’ve got to listen to me. It’s me—Bill!”

“I know how you ixodida work,” she growled. “You take people, and you transform them. But you leave their faces as a defense mechanism so that the humans closest to them let down their guard. You may look like him. You may even sound like him. But I know what you really are.”

“You have it all wrong,” Bill insisted, turning his gaze back to her. “It’s me in here, Lanette. I’m telling the truth.”

“Y-Y’know, you really should listen to him,” Thom offered. “He’s really not that—”

“Wattson, if you’re not a traitor, then shut up and do something,” Lanette snarled.

As if that finally snapped him out of his shock, Thom straightened. “Lanette, c’mon! He’s really reasonable if you just let him—”

She interrupted with a quick, barking laugh. And that was the sound that hurt Bill the most. It wasn’t the first time he had heard Lanette laugh, no, but whenever she had done so in the past, it was always a light sound, high in the throat and quick and warm, like the chirping of a swablu. This sound, however, was low and sharp and cold, as if it came from someplace muddy and dark. Lanette twisted in her partner’s grip and gave Thom an icy sneer.

“You idiot,” she whispered. “All of them will sound reasonable, but that’s all for show. Everything they do is to catch you in their trap. This thing may have sounded reasonable to you, but it’s only waiting to take advantage of you because it knows we outnumber it.”

“It has a name,” Bill responded crossly. Then, with a sigh, he bent his head down again. “All I’m asking is for you to listen to me. Please, Lanette. I know this isn’t you.”

Snapping her glare back to Bill, Lanette bared her teeth and jolted one of her legs to the side, pulling Bill’s tail harshly in the process. An electric pain ran up Bill’s spine, causing him to yelp and drop himself lower to Lanette. However, his grip on her arms tightened, and his legs ground into the floor even as his tail loosened. Before Lanette could move, before she could pull her legs out of the metal coil around her knees, he leaned down and pressed his forehead into the floor next to her ear.

“I didn’t want to do this,” he rasped. “But you won’t listen to me otherwise.”

Carefully, he leaned down to whisper something in Lanette’s ear. Her eyes widened as her entire body tensed. She knew what it was: a password—specifically, a password for the deepest parts of the storage system, the parts that only the people who knew it the most intimately could unlock. Not only that, but it wasn’t just any password. It was Kanto and Johto’s password, one meant for only a single interface in the entire world. And she knew this because it was also the one word only one person outside of her family knew, and only one person knew it because there was only one person she would ever trust with it.

She really did hate her first name. Bill, at least, didn’t judge her for it, although in the past, she would have jokingly said it would be because he would have been one to talk. He knew this. He remembered conversations about this, and he missed them already. And now, as he lifted his head just enough to look into her eyes, he watched her expression become unreadable. It wasn’t because it was blank. It was because it was a mixture of several different emotions at once. Confused. Hurt. Angry. Bill studied her face, waiting patiently for her to make the next move.

And eventually, the next move came in the form of her voice, tiny and soft for the first time since they were reunited.

“Bill.”

He pushed himself up, placing his hands on either side of her head. Quietly, he gazed down at her with a broad smile.

“Lanette,” he breathed, relieved that she was no longer fighting him. “Hello.”

They stared at each other for a very long, very quiet moment.

And then she kneed him in the hip.

Buckling over, Bill slammed his forehead back into the floor to avoid hitting Lanette, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that she was now shoving at his shoulders and clawing at the side of his face, screaming what he figured were French obscenities in a frantic effort to get him off.

“Why would that make you _more_ violent?!” he cried as he pushed himself back onto his hands.

She responded by slamming her knee directly between his legs. He stopped, freezing at the lack of pain from Lanette’s assault. Despite the fact that Lanette was now punching him in the chest, he lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

“Really?!” he yelled.

_As appropriate as it would be to discuss that matter, considering your literal position in this situation,_ Adam replied, _we will discuss that at another time._

“Honestly, haven’t I had enough without—” His words broke off abruptly when Lanette punched him in the chin. Turning his glare back towards her, he reached up to grab her arms and press them down into the floor with the palms of his hands. “Okay, that hurt.”

“Let me go,” she growled again.

“No,” Bill responded. “Listen. I don’t know why you’re so militantly against ixodida, but you’ve got to believe me when I say—”

A jet of water blasted him in the side. It sent him sailing across the room and into the videophones, narrowly missing Thom in the process. With a crash, Bill fell to the floor under another rain of sparks and broken metal and plastic, only this time, it actually hurt. Warily, he crawled to his hands and knees and shook off the excess water before lifting his chin to see his assailant.

It was a wartortle. A wartortle standing just beyond Lanette. The turtle held his limbs out slightly to the side, and even though he had yet to receive another order to attack, bubbles were already forming in his pointed, cerulean mouth. Behind him, though, stood Raye with her arms slack at her sides and her eyes wide and trained directly on Bill.

“Raye,” he murmured.

Then, she did the one thing that saved Bill’s life. She started crying.

Bawling, actually. Complete with her head tilted back, her mouth open, her eyes shut, and tears streaming freely down her face. Lanette moved towards her, but Thom grabbed her before she could get far. He flung her crowbar to the side and wrapped her in her arms, holding her close and tight even as she squirmed. Then, leaning in, Thom whispered one phrase into her ear.

“Let him handle this.”

Bill didn’t even need to hear that cue. Even as Thom was wrapping Lanette up in his arms, Bill was making his move, starting towards his sister on all fours. Once he passed Thom and Lanette, he pushed off the ground and rose to his feet, stumbling the last few steps to his sister. Her wartortle growled, shifting himself between the ixodida and the trainer. Bill glanced down at the turtle, then back up at his sister. With a deep breath, Bill reached over the turtle, slowly and gently until his knuckles brushed up against Raye’s face. Instantly, her bawling stopped, replaced only by hiccups and tears as she stared at him through a squint. Then, after only a few seconds, her eyes widened, and her face paled. She stumbled backwards a few paces and cringed, and her sobs turned into a quivering whimper.

“Raye,” Bill cooed. “Daijoubu. It’s me.”

In response, she flinched, shutting her eyes tightly as she wrapped her arms over her head.

“Go away!” she cried. “Go away go away go away …!”

Bill shook his head. “Please don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” And then, when she cried out once more, Bill continued, “I don’t understand. What will prove to you that you can trust me?”

“Well, she’s probably just scared of you ‘cause you’re covered in blood,” Thom told him matter-of-factly.

Bill shot a glance over his shoulder to see Thom casually standing behind him with one large hand clamped over the mouth of a quietly fuming Lanette.

“Just sayin’, man,” he said. “You’ve got blood all over you. Might wanna clean that up so you don’t look like you just killed someone.”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Bill turned away from Thom and lifted one of his hands. He peered at his reflection on his forearm until he caught sight of the splatters of red covering his neck, his chest, and the entire left side of his face. Entire swaths of red still looked wet and fresh, and red rivulets of water and blood dribbled down his chest.

“Oh,” he said faintly. “So I do.” Then, looking down at his sister’s wartortle, he added, “Hit me.”

The turtle screwed up his face in confusion. Tilting his head to the side, he trilled half of his species’ name but refused to fire a shot.

At that, Bill stepped back and spread his arms. “Hit me. Aim for my chest, if you’d please.”

Somewhere in his head, he heard Adam sigh. _Oh, that is a terrible idea._

Unfortunately, Bill didn’t have time to protest. He could only tear his eyes away from his sister’s wartortle as the other pokémon shrugged, lifted a stubby, blue paw, and slammed a foot down into the ground. Blue circles of light flashed across the floor in the short distance between the wartortle and his target until they formed a ring beneath the ixodida’s feet, and all at once, Bill realized exactly why Adam called his train of thought a bad idea. Before he could call it off or dodge the turtle’s attack, jets of water burst from the floor and slammed into Bill at full force, and he was blasted off his feet and into the air. Unable to control his flightpath, Bill pinwheeled through the air and came crashing down onto the couches, sopping wet and thoroughly bruised. Groaning, he sat up and whipped around to face the turtle.

“I didn’t say use Water Pledge on me!” he shouted.

The wartortle responded by shooting a Water Gun directly into Bill’s face.

On the positive side, the attack hurt less than Water Pledge. On the negative, Bill was forced to contemplate that thought as he lay flat on his back, never mind the fact that he was fully aware that the wartortle was now laughing at him. Scrambling to his feet again, Bill was about to tell the pokémon off when something else made him stop: a noise just to his left. Swinging his eyes towards its source in awe, he caught sight of his sister. Her hands were balled in front of her mouth, and her eyes were fixed on the ground, just as Bill had left her. But what was different about her now was that there was a hint of a smile behind her hands, and her voice wasn’t broken up by sobs.

It was broken up by laughter.

“I did it,” Bill breathed.

Then, shaking his head, he moved towards her again, this time on two feet. When he reached her, she didn’t move away from him. Instead, she flinched, her laughter silencing in an uncertain grunt. Carefully, slowly, Bill reached out again and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. Even through his steel armor, he could feel the gritty, dry tear tracks on her skin. The heat bothered him, but he kept his hand there, brushing her face with cautious strokes.

“Daijoubu,” he whispered. “Daijoubu.”

She sniffed and stared at him, stared directly at his face. But she couldn’t say a word. Not yet.

“Gomen,” he continued. “Kowakatta?”

This time, Raye could respond, but she could only do it in a strained, rasping voice. “Nii-chan?”

He nodded once. “Hello, Raye. I’m sorry I missed your birthday again.”

Pressing her face into her brother’s hand, Raye shook with a sniffle. Bill could feel her tears, warm and watery, flow onto his fingers. When she opened one eye, the one not pressed against him, she stared directly into his face for the first time.

“Nii-chan,” she whined. “Nii-chan. Kowai wa.”

Relaxing a little, Bill moved his hand to Raye’s shoulder and pulled her closer. She complied, wrapping her arms around him tightly, and he followed by draping his own over her. As she buried her face in his torso, she burst into a second round of tears and sobs. The warmth seeped through Bill’s metal skin, but he did his best to ignore it. He was going to get used to this. He was going to do it to help Raye. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. With those three thoughts repeating over and over again in his head, he reached up to stroke Raye’s hair gently.

“Shh,” he replied, stroking her hair gently. “I know. I know.”

A few paces away, Thom’s grip on Lanette slackened just enough for Lanette to push him away. He let her, watching her stand as she stared at the siblings in front of her.

“See?” Thom said. “He’s harmless.”

It took a few moments for Lanette to respond. She could only watch as the ixodida stood embracing his sister. Then, she shook her head and moved to pick up her crowbar.

“No,” she muttered.

Thom glanced at her in curiosity. Bill looked over his shoulder, regarding his partner carefully. Something was wrong. So very obviously wrong. But Lanette wouldn’t look at either of them as she pulled a pair of poké balls from one of the belts around her chest. She only kept her eyes trained on the floor as she recalled her pokémon and moved towards the door.

“Hey!” Thom shouted. “Whadda you mean, ‘no’?!”

Lanette shook her head again. “I … I need to consult Officer Jenny.” She froze at the door and straightened her back, and when she spoke again, her voice was steady and cold. “Bill. Scavengers will give you clothing and supplies, and guards will take you to where you will live. You may stay in the vicinity of Fallarbor, but you absolutely cannot stay inside its borders. Instead, we may have a place for you just beyond the border at the western edge of town. There’s an abandoned house there that once belonged to a fossil maniac. It will have to do for now. You’re to stay there—and only there. Once the guards deliver you there, you are not to set foot inside the town unescorted.”

Bill pulled away from his sister then, resting a hand on her shoulder as he turned towards his partner. Had he failed? “Lanette ...”

Thom, evidently, was a bit more emotional than the ixodida. He balled his hands into fists and started forward, stopping just a few paces behind Lanette to shout, “Hey! What kind of deal is that?!”

She whirled around. “This is not up for discussion, Wattson.”

“Like hell it is! Raye, back me up here!”

The girl tucked herself in front of Bill so that he stood firmly between her and Lanette. Bill, meanwhile, lifted his head at that point. There was another sound filtering into his ears: a high-pitched hum.

Growling at the lack of response he was getting, Thom turned towards the siblings. “C’mon! Bill, don’t you have anything else to say here?!”

“Hold on,” he said quietly. His tail began swaying behind him, and he strained his ears to listen to the hum. Whatever it was, it was getting closer and louder and lower pitched.

Thom relaxed and blinked. “Huh? Hold on? For what?”

Bill looked over his shoulder again. “Don’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Lanette sighed in exasperation and massaged the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me you know anything about the body you’re inhabiting, Bill.”

It was his turn to glance at her strangely. “What? What do you mean?”

“Ixodida have sensitive hearing,” Lanette huffed. “They can detect sounds much further away than humans, and they have a wider hearing range. Meaning, for those of us who are not scientists—” She shot Thom a venomous glare, as if it was a mortal sin that he wasn’t scientifically gifted. “—that of course he can hear something that we can’t.”

“That … I admit I noticed. However, this sound …” Bill replied slowly. Then, he shook his head. Of course they couldn’t hear it. It was too low, too far away. Knowing that, he turned his head towards the source of the noise and nodded. “I can hear a hum. It’s coming from that direction.”

“That direction?” Lanette opened her eyes fully but didn’t move her hand. She peered hard at her partner from over both it and her glasses. “Explain.”

He looked at her again, eyebrows arched as he searched her face for an explanation to her demand. She had gone white, and already, Bill could feel a creeping sensation in the pit of his stomach because of it.

“Explain?” he asked.

“What does it sound like?” she responded, firmly, with emphasis on each syllable.

“Er.” Bill shook his head. “It’s … it’s a quiet hum. It’s getting closer. I-I’m not sure what you—”

“Exactly in that direction?” Lanette snapped.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because,” she told him impatiently, “that is the direction of Route 113. There is a known ixodida nest at the edge of town. Right. There.”

Thom chuckled nervously. “Yeah, but … they haven’t moved for months! It’s not like they’re going to … would they?”

Lanette shifted a fiery glare at Thom before settling it back on Bill. “You’re an ethologist. Surely you’ve figured it out by now.”

“Figured it out?” Bill squeaked, drawing himself closer to Raye. “I don’t … I don’t understand. Figured what out?”

“What Hoenn is to the ixodida, Bill,” she snapped. “Think! You are in—”

Before she could finish, a terrible sound erupted from the direction the hum had come from. Bill had never really heard a bloodcurdling scream outside of horror films, but he could only describe the sound he heard right then as such: loud and wild and from the back of the throat, as if their voices were trying desperately to escape their chests to the point where they shredded their lungs in the process. He couldn’t even count how many there were; they blended together into one ear-splitting screech. Bill flinched, bowing his head over his sister as he cried out in pain, and she only responded by clinging tighter and tighter to him until, at last, the screams died down. Slowly, Bill lifted his head again and gazed at the corner where the sound had pierced into the room. Then, he looked back at Thom, who was frozen with his jaw dropped and his eyes wide. Next to him was Lanette, who frowned and stared at the door like a dog about to dash off into the hunt. She reached up to grasp her crowbar as her eyes flicked back to Bill, waiting for a question.

And naturally, he delivered. “What was that?”

“That, Bill,” she told him bluntly, “is an entire horde of ixodida, and all of them are angry. Congratulations.”

“For what?” he replied, his voice nearly inaudible.

She shook her head and started for the door. “I’m not explaining this to you now. Watch over your sister, and for the love of all the gods, don’t you dare think about anything else.”

* * *

A burst of electricity lit up one of the laboratories in Polaris Institute. Although she didn’t flinch, Professor Nettle was thankful for the protective glass between herself and her subject. Silently, she narrowed her eyes at the gardevoir and haunter on the other side of the glass. They were meant to restrain the thing inside the room, but with one attack—with a single blast of lightning—they fell to the floor in limp heaps. Without their influence holding it down, the creature once known as Joel Anderson stood atop the burnt wreckage of a medical pod.

But this thing was only recognizably Joel in that it had his face. From the neck downward, it was a yellow creature—a reptilian being with radioactively neon skin that glowed softly in the dimness of its holding cell. Spikes jutted out of its back and ran down the length of its long, twisting tail, right up to the appendage’s rounded, club-like tip. Its three-clawed feet dug into the cushions of the medical pod as the rest of its body tensed. At the same time, the creature’s stiff arms held its thin hands to its sides, and the longer it waited, the more sparks jumped up its long, spindly fingers to the tips of its sharp claws. A curtain of long, blond hair fell in front of its face, but Nettle could see past it, directly into its blank, dead eyes.

Part of Professor Nettle, a part she carefully guarded from the outside world, felt afraid right then. But on the outside, all her subordinates could see was the calm silence she emitted as she stood tall, her head back and her hands clasped behind her back. She didn’t even bother issuing orders as the assistants frantically punched buttons on the flashing console in front of them. Nettle only watched patiently as more hatches in the walls of the other room opened, as more haunter flooded the room, and as more electricity burnt each one of them to a crisp easily.

And then, her lips just barely moved.

“He’ll do,” she murmured.

“Funny,” a voice chimed in, “I was about to say the same thing.”

She whirled around right then, betraying some of her fear to gaze wide-eyed at the source of the voice. There, to her surprise, was John McKenzie standing right beside her. He wasn’t even looking at her; his eyes were fixed only on the creature in the other room.

“How did you get in?” she growled. “This is a restricted area, assigned only to the behavioral team. And as far as I know—”

“Funny you should start with _that_ instead of asking me who I am,” he commented. Then, with a sweeping look at the assistants, he shouted, “Relax, lads and lasses! He’ll tire himself out! Eventually.”

“I know who you are,” Nettle responded impatiently. “Everyone knows about you and your … habits.”

John raised his eyebrows at her. “Really? I would’ve thought that, being isolated in the Canadian arctic, you wouldn’t have bothered with silly things like the news.”

Nettle sneered and hesitated. No. No, he couldn’t have known about her conversation with Professor Oak concerning the other McKenzie she had the displeasure of knowing. His word choice was just a coincidence.

“Answer my question, Professor,” she snapped.

He smirked and shoved his hands into his lab coat’s pockets. “Now now. That’s not polite. But if you need an answer, dear lass, the short of it is uncovering information is my job, and despite what you might have heard, I take my job very seriously. What are doors to me? Just inconveniences between information and me, love.”

“Don’t you dare patronize me.”

John held up a hand. “Was I? Sorry. I was merely saying that ...” He trailed off briefly, turning his head directly towards Nettle. Then, when he spoke next, his voice dropped to a low, clear tone. “I know quite a lot about you, Professor Yvonne Nettle. Aged fifty-one. Affiliations with Otter University in Otter City, Reste Region. Other affiliations include the Canadian branch of the Pokémon Symposium and Team Rocket.”

The last two words hit Nettle hard, but somehow, she maintained her composure. All expression drained from her face except a stone-faced regality. She lifted her chin and pursed her lips at her companion.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Too late for that, m’dear,” John said with a grin. “I know exactly what happened to this young man … never mind William. Which one was your fault?”

Suddenly, Nettle was aware that there was no longer any sound coming from her side of the glass. All of the voices, all of the clicking, all of the footsteps—all of them died down until Nettle could only hear the blasts of electricity coming from the other side of the glass. As the seconds passed, she became increasingly aware of the fact that all eyes were on her. And in the corners of her line of vision, she noticed that all she could see were assistants. None of the researchers on the behavioral team were there. Where were they? Why didn’t she notice them leave? How long were they gone?

“I thought it would be more appropriate to discuss our business alone,” John told her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I hope you don’t mind, but the rest of your team were delighted to take a day off. Seems like you aren’t exactly popular among your crowd. And if what I’ve gathered is correct, then I’m not just talking about the behavioral team.”

Nettle narrowed her eyes and turned her head to face the glass. “What do you want?”

“Answers, Professor Nettle. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Don’t lie to me, Professor.”

John shrugged. “Okay, that’s the _first_ thing I’ve wanted. But the rest isn’t any of your business, is it?” Then, his grin broadened. “Now. Tell me. Codename Adam was whose fault exactly?”

Nettle scoffed. “What? He starts off as William and ends as Codename Adam, and I’m the one you call a monster?” She shifted to look at him with a bored expression. “If you must know, the agent responsible for the violation to the Yeled Protocol is in Hoenn. She thinks she’s honoring our organization by hunting down your son. I trust you know where she went.”

“Of course I do. Do you?”

“No. Nor does my operation care. No one is going to retrieve her.”

John sucked in a breath. “Ooh. Cold. She’s one of your own, you know.”

“As far as the operatives working under me are concerned, she became a traitor as soon as she violated the Yeled Protocol. We know better than to cross D.E.V.A.’s path.”

“You mean you don’t have any use for her, and we just happen to be a convenient excuse.”

Nettle eyed him for a few seconds. Then, as the corners of her mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile, she replied, “Yes.”

John chuckled and looked at the floor. “Very well. It’s none of my business what you do with your subordinates.”

“Exactly,” Nettle replied. “And now, a question for you, Professor McKenzie.”

He looked up at her in mock surprise. “Oi! Didja think we were playing a game, lassie?”

She crossed her arms. “Yes, and I know how you are with games. You answered my first question. I answered yours. If you answer my question now, then that means I will be forced to wait for your question … or for you to decide that the game is over. Doesn’t that sound fair?”

“Aye,” John replied, relaxing into a confident grin. “You know how to negotiate, Yvonne.”

“Professor Nettle,” she growled. “And only Professor Nettle. Understood?”

“My sincerest apologies.”

She leered again at his light sarcasm but said nothing towards it. Nothing at all was going to deflect her from her purpose. “Professor McKenzie. What are you to D.E.V.A.?”

“What am I?”

“I admit I know nothing of D.E.V.A.’s structure beyond what is implied by the Yeled Protocol, but even with that, I can tell that it’s a bit extreme for any ordinary personnel. You have all of D.E.V.A.’s army protecting your children specifically, and it was drafted far before any of them mattered.”

John smiled, but this time, there was something dark in that look. The way he stared at Nettle made her feel as if he could set her on fire with a glance, as if he could reach out and snap her head off her neck with a single twitch, as if he alone commanded the fury of the entire universe and was now holding it over her head and waiting for the right moment to drop it.

And for that briefest moment, Nettle was scared. Visibly scared.

“That’s where you’re wrong. They’ve always mattered,” he replied happily. “And as for your question, I’m just a man who made a deal, love. That’s all.”

With that, he turned on his heel and trotted towards the door. After he crossed half of the room, he hesitated, sending another chill up Nettle’s spine.

“By the way, Professor Nettle,” he said, “don’t you find Codename Abel particularly fascinating?”

John didn’t give her a chance to respond. He only strutted the rest of the way out of the room.

The game, at last, had become interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary:**
> 
>  
> 
>  _Japanese_  
>  Daijoubu = (I am) okay/no need to worry/generally “all is good” kind of phrase. It can also be used to ask if someone is okay, depending on context.  
> Kowai wa = I am scared  
> Kowakatta = Did I scare you?
> 
>  _French_  
>  Reste = rest. Probably funnier if you knew Canadian geography. Or not.


	12. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill puts a gun against its head (pulls a trigger, and now it's dead).

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 1_  
CLEARANCE ACCEPTED.  
DOCUMENT TYPE: DOSSIER  
DESIGNATION: D.E.V.A. PERSONNEL CODEX ENTRY #000003  
DESCRIPTION: OBJECT CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM  
DATE-TIME: LAST EDIT, 11/01/02, 00:01 

_OVERVIEW: According to standard analysis procedures (see CODEX ENTRY #000002: RETRIEVAL PROTOCOLS), a Committee-selected team from the science department, henceforth known as ALPHA TEAM, are required to submit a full report of their observations and analyses concerning every retrieved or encountered special entity. Based on the containability of the entity as well as the level of threat it presents to civilians, the subject will be assigned one of five classes, listed below:_

_CLASS 0: Inert_  
Entities listed as Class 0 pose no threat to civilians and are deemed safe to integrate into the outside world. (See CODEX ENTRY #000005: CLASS 0 RELEASE PROGRAM)  
\- CLASS EXAMPLES: SE-049 (“Porygon”), SE-056 (“Storage System”), SE-251 (“Leftovers”) 

_CLASS I: Safe_  
Entities listed as Class I may pose a threat to civilians only if activated by direct interaction. Objects are capable of being contained within a D.E.V.A. facility and are therefore guarded by D.E.V.A. personnel on a constant basis. (See CODEX ENTRY #000004: CLASS I AND II CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES)  
\- CLASS EXAMPLES: SE-061 (“GS Ball”), SE-186 (“Azure Flute”), SE-704 (“Strange Souvenir”) 

_CLASS II: Containable_  
Entities listed as Class II pose a definite threat to civilians, even if a bystander does not directly interact with it. Objects under this classification can be contained using standard procedures but may also require use of advanced D.E.V.A. technology and expendable or non-human personnel to maintain.  
\- CLASS EXAMPLES: SE-442 (“Odd Keystone”), SE-517 (“Dream Mist”), SE-528 (“Ixodida”) 

_CLASS III: Hazardous_  
Entities listed as Class III pose an extreme threat to civilians and are difficult to contain. Extensive protocols designed for each individual Class III entity are required not only for their containment but also the events of their escape. Total breaches by Class III entities are generally considered to be end-of-world scenarios. (See CODEX ENTRY #000005: CLASS III BASIC CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES)  
\- CLASS EXAMPLES: SE-042 (“Teru-sama”), SE-175 (“Bad Egg”), SE-646 (“God Stone”) 

_CLASS IV: Singular_  
Entities listed as Class IV are exclusively pokémon, collectively known as [REDACTED]. Each Class IV entity possesses power far greater than any ordinary pokémon, and as such, they cannot be adequately contained by D.E.V.A.’s current resources. However, the Committee, through agreements dating back to [REDACTED] have been able to form an agreement with [REDACTED] known as the Arceus Document. According to this agreement, D.E.V.A. agents are permitted to acknowledge Class IV entities and catalogue them according to Class 0 procedures. Class IV entities may also be called upon to [REDACTED] by following the protocols outlined by [REDACTED]. (See [ERROR—DOCUMENT INACCESSIBLE TO CURRENT CLEARANCE LEVEL])  
\- CLASS EXAMPLES: [ERROR—INFORMATION INACCESSIBLE TO CURRENT CLEARANCE LEVEL] 

* * *

The way Lanette moved was like a dance itself. For anyone who knew her, it might have been difficult to believe that just a year ago, she was a clumsy, shy mouse, the exact kind of person who would never dream of leading a team. Back then, she was only Lanette Chastain, a quiet, plain young woman who passed up any credit for co-inventing the storage system in favor of a life in virtual obscurity. Now, she was Lanette Chastain, the confident, competent, graceful ice queen of Fallarbor Town, the person most likely to be the first to jump into a fight against the ixodida. The person who commanded Fallarbor’s defense forces. The person who would see the absolute extermination of the ixodida if it killed her.

And as she moved down the main drag of Fallarbor Town with Thom in tow, she thought about nothing more than that. Absolutely nothing more.

Absolutely no part of her, not even the tiny voice at the back of her mind, thought about the look Bill—the one on whom she pushed all the credit for the storage system, the one she once trusted just as much as her own sister—gave her when she left him.

She would see to the extermination of every ixodida in the region, even if it killed her.

“Wattson. Radio,” she snapped.

Behind her, she heard the grunt of her companion. Without looking at him, she held out her hand, only to feel the weight of the radio slap into her palm. Her hazel eyes narrowed at the silent sky. It was too quiet for an attack.

Her thumb jammed the button on the side of the walkie-talkie as she brought it close to her mouth. “Jenny. Status.”

Releasing the button, she listened to the static screeching from the speaker. She tilted her head, eyes cast towards the rooftops surrounding her. Gunmen and pokémon lined the street, waiting for the first sign of the ixodida. So they heard the warning scream too.

“Thank gods, ma’am,” Officer Jenny’s voice responded from the speaker. “No sign of them yet. Cloud of dust got stirred up about half a mile from the city limits a few seconds ago, though, so they’re clearly on the move.”

Lanette brought the radio to her face again. “And your team?”

“Positioned. Ammo stocks are good. Pokémon rested and prepped. We’re ready. What’s your status, ma’am?”

With that, Lanette pulled a ball from one of her pockets and thumbed the catch on its face. She felt it smoothly expand in her hand, the cold plastic occupying her entire palm.

“Preparing. Two pokémon down, though.” She shot a glare at Thom, who tensed and grinned sheepishly.

“Joy’s up here with us in Area 3 if you need her.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve still got—”

“Hold on. _Fire! Fire, god—_ ”

Shots rang out, and a scream erupted from some distance away from Lanette. Her eyes swung to the sky, just in time to see a black dot loop in the air and pitch downward. She leapt out of the way, planting her feet on the sidewalk along the road before twisting around to look back. There, where she had stood a moment ago, Thom flailed and stumbled backwards. Lanette sighed and gripped her poké ball. She was preparing to rush in and rescue Thom when the black blur slammed into him full force, sending both itself and him tumbling backwards.

And when they stopped, Lanette stopped. She peered down with surprise; the thing that untangled itself from Thom’s bulky body wasn’t an ixodida but instead a human woman—a young woman in a black uniform, with disheveled, blonde hair and a silver machine on her back. The silver machine, meanwhile, sported a smoking bullet hole in its side. Grunting, the girl pulled it off her shoulders, examined the damage, and cursed loudly.

“That’s just great,” she snapped as she tossed the device away. Then, reaching over, she grabbed a white hat where it had fallen beside Thom. Standing up, she shrugged at the sight of Thom—who, at that moment, was still lying in a dazed heap on the concrete—before she started for the sidewalk.

At that point, Lanette moved quickly. She pocketed her ball, and with one fluid motion, she reached up to unsheathe her crowbar and swing it at the girl’s neck. The intruder stopped short, narrowly missing a moment in which she would have collided perfectly with the sharpened end of the crowbar. Her eyes fell on the tool, and her mouth twisted into a surprised grimace.

“Who are you, and how did you get here?” Lanette snapped.

The expression on the woman’s face shifted into one of smugness. “Nice stick,” she said. “But I’m not interested in you.”

She slid to the side and started forward. However, Lanette was faster, blocking Domino’s escape again with a jump to the left. Domino stopped short again, just in time to narrowly avoid being stabbed in the chest with Lanette’s crowbar. With a heavy sigh, Domino grabbed the sharpened end.

“You’re really persistent, aren’t you?” She smiled. “I hate it when people I don’t like are persistent. That’s super-annoying.”

With that, she knocked the crowbar to the side and swung her other fist towards Lanette’s face. Lanette, eyes narrowed at Domino, tilted herself to the side to let the agent’s arm sail past her head. Her hand drove the crowbar down in an arc towards Domino’s knees. In the split second after noticing this movement, the agent jumped, kicked the crowbar with her shin, and dropped to the ground to roll out of Lanette’s reach. When she broke out of her tumble, her hand flung outwards, and a green and black blur cut across Lanette’s cheek and sailed into the pavement behind her. Glancing back for a second, Lanette saw the deep black of a tulip blossom swaying where it stood with its stem embedded in the road. When she looked back, her opponent was gone. Lanette rubbed her wrist in thought and glared at the storefronts around her for any sign of the intruder. Everything had gone quiet. She couldn’t even hear the agent’s footsteps. All she could hear was the whistle of the wind between buildings and the soft scratching of Thom sitting up behind her.

Abruptly, a deafening crack broke the silence.

Lanette whirled in the direction of its source. East. _East._

At her hip, from its spot clipped to her hip, the radio burst to life.

“Ma’am!” Jenny barked. “Get off the ground! Go! _They’re ground-types!_ ”

Lanette hissed an expletive and dashed for Thom. She grabbed him roughly by the arm and, without stopping, yanked him to his feet.

“Come on!” she screamed. “Let’s go! Move!”

Blearily, Thom stumbled after her, his mouth flopping open and closed as he stared at her. “W-whu—”

He never did finish his question. Because in the next instant, the road exploded.

* * *

Bill wished he could relax. Why did he have to worry, after all? He wasn’t the one being dragged into battle. And anyway, this was the pokémon center, possibly the safest place in town when it came to an attack. Not that he would have to worry in the first place. After all, these were ixodida, completely ordinary people stuck in the same situation he was … right?

Yet for the life of him, he couldn’t shake a certain feeling of foreboding. It was the kind of feeling he had whenever he would hear about a security breach or a server crash on another region’s storage system. It was the kind he best described as being antsy, the kind where he felt like he had to do something but couldn’t figure out what it was he was supposed to do. It was the kind where every muscle in his body physically ached with the want to move.

But … he couldn’t. He had a job to do right then, and as he wrapped an arm tightly around his sister, he mentally repeated that idea to himself again and again. He had to stay there. He had to protect Raye. He had to, for once, do what Lanette told him to do.

Unfortunately for him, the presence in his brain told him otherwise.

_Now is an appropriate time to discuss our arrangement,_ Adam stated, its voice strained and low.

“No, it isn’t,” Bill muttered back under his breath.

_On the contrary. This is the first moment where you will be given an opportunity to uphold your end of the bargain. It is only fair that you know exactly what it is you will be up against._

“I’m not going up against anything!” Bill hissed. “I’m staying right here, and—”

Raye stirred beside him. “Nii-chan?”

He shook his head and stroked the top of Raye’s. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

_You are wrong. Listen to me. You do not have much time. I must explain to you how this—_

Bill glared at the ceiling. _I don’t care._

_Ah. Good. You have finally caught on._

He huffed and shifted his glare towards the front window. Yellowish clouds billowed past and filled the streets. Squinting, he could barely make out the silhouette of a bird falling in the middle of the cloud. The sandstorm burst around it, swirling away just enough to reveal the sleek, blue and white body of an altaria. Lanette sprang from the remnants of the golden cloud to leap onto the bird’s back, and together, pokémon and rider ascended out of view.

_A sandstorm. I had hoped that we would not encounter members of clans stronger than ours so soon, but I suppose it cannot be helped._

“What are you going on about?” Bill sighed. He sank a little into the seat. Raye, following his movement, pressed herself harder into him and buried her face into his side.

_Clans,_ Adam explained. _You would call them types. However, there are seventeen to your eighteen. I will not bother going over the politics or differences between each one. That would not be relevant to this situation, unfortunately._

Bill’s eyes fell on his sister again. He wanted so badly to snap a response back to Adam, but he couldn’t risk worrying his sister. So instead, he remained motionless and silent, watching the window out of the corner of his eye again.

_Well, perhaps to be more accurate, the Sun Clan is not that much stronger than us, but any attack we cannot completely defend against may pose a problem, given your combat experience. Or, as I should say, your_ lack _of combat experience._

Bill clenched his teeth and focused on one message. If he couldn’t tell Adam off verbally in front of his sister, he was going to put forth a lot of effort to tell the parasite off mentally.

_For someone who’s trying his hardest to get me to agree with you, you certainly have an unusual way of doing it,_ he snapped.

_Can you blame me? You could not even figure out how to break out of a human’s box on your own._

_It was electrified!_

_In any case,_ Adam continued, _the Sun Clan is clever. As you can likely tell, they have dominion over the earth itself. They share this with the Stone Clan and the Tree Clan in a way, but while the Stone Clan controls rock specifically and the Tree Clan controls plant life, the Sun Clan is limited only to dirt, mud, and sand. An unusual element, I must admit, but I do not make the rules concerning elemental abilities._

Bill narrowed his eyes and turned to look at the window again. The golden cloud had regenerated, but seconds after Bill turned his gaze on it, it was lanced briefly by a bolt of ice-blue energy. A spire of ice grew out of that energy before the dust shrouded it.

_So they’re ground-types,_ Bill responded. Then, glancing at his lap, he swallowed. _Oh. And we’re steel._

_Of the Iron Clan, yes. Are you taking notes?_

_Adam._

_Fine, fine._ Adam hesitated for a moment. _As I have said, members of the Sun Clan are clever. They are not the cleverest of my kind, but they are far more creative than the simple-minded Stone people. They are also generally aggressive, unlike the Tree Clan, so in short, you are looking at a vicious, spiteful enemy who knows exactly how to use its element._

_A vicious, spiteful enemy with a type advantage,_ Bill replied.

_Perhaps._

_Oh._ With that, Bill rested his head on the top of the couch and closed his eyes. _It’s good then that I’m in no way interested in battling them._

_On the contrary._

Bill’s body flung itself off the couch, pulling away from Raye. It took several steps forward before stuttering to a halt, and only then did Bill feel as if he was standing on his own two feet. Raye thumped against the couch behind him, and as she picked herself back up, she gazed at her brother with wide eyes.

“Nii-chan?” she squeaked.

He waved a hand at her. “Stay there!” Then, frowning, he turned away from her and clenched his teeth. _What are you doing?!_

_Encouraging you to fulfill your end of our bargain,_ Adam responded.

_What on Earth are you talking about?_

_Your end,_ Adam replied impatiently. _In exchange for the gifts I have given you, my promise that you can trust me, and my vow that I will ensure that no harm comes to you, you have promised me two things: knowledge and cooperation. You are, of course, fulfilling your end of the bargain concerning knowledge, but it is cooperation that you have withheld so far. Do not tell me now that you are a liar, Bill._

Bill pressed his eyes shut and shook his head vigorously. _Oh no. Oh no, no no. You listen to me, Adam. I absolutely will not battle against another ixodida. I’m not good at pokémon battles. If you send me into one, then there’s a very good chance that we’ll get hurt—or worse, killed! I absolutely refuse to do it._

_Then what else do you propose? You wish to protect mankind, yet you will not confront the challenge its enemies have put forth. What, then, do you propose to do?_

At that, Bill went quiet. Or, rather, he felt as if he went quiet, but in actuality, a thousand different thoughts ran through his head at once. He again turned to the window, gazing out at the golden cloud. He could hear gunfire roaring, the cracking of concrete, the screeching of something inhuman, the cacophony of pokémon attacks cutting through the air and exploding across the road. Yet all he could see was pure, swirling gold. It occurred to him then that he couldn’t see any of the ixodida—not even as shadows dancing across the fog of dust. He wondered what they looked like, whether they looked like him.

Whether they felt like him.

“I want to talk to them,” he said.

He glanced over his shoulder at Raye. In the past couple of minutes, she had opted to hold her wartortle as a substitute for her brother, and now, as he glanced at her, she tilted her head and stared back with wide, startled eyes.

“Nii-ch—”

_You cannot be serious,_ Adam said.

“On the contrary,” Bill answered, half to Adam and half to his sister. “This is exactly what they need. If I could just talk to them, maybe they’ll call off the attack.”

Raye shook her head. “Nii-chan …!”

_Fine._

That was the complete opposite of what Bill was expecting. Surely, Raye would have wanted peace, while Adam would have wanted him to find a more violent solution … right? Because of that, Bill started forward, unsure of which response to answer first. But it was when Raye reached out to him and lightly gripped his arm with one of her hands that he chose to lean towards her a little more.

“Raye, everything’s going to be okay,” he said. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s talking to pokémon.”

She shook her head again, and her eyes glistened as if she was about to cry. “No, Nii-chan! Don’t go down there!”

He raised his head slightly. “Don’t go down …?”

Before he could ask any further, a flash of gold burst from the floor behind the couch and shot towards the ceiling. It slammed through the titles and continued out of sight into the floor above them. As a result, Bill couldn’t quite get a good look at the object, but he could have sworn it was ...

“Sand?” Bill murmured.

Abruptly, another burst of gold erupted from the floor, followed by another and another until a gaping hole opened up in the center of the pokémon center lobby. All the while, Raye’s grip on her brother’s arm tightened until her knuckles were white. The three of them waited: Bill with his eyes on the hole, Raye with her arms wrapped around Bill’s, and Raye’s wartortle, now standing on the couch and emitting a low, guttural growl.

Then, Bill heard it. A second growl coming from the hole, punctuated by occasional soft barks and scuffling against concrete. Something was down there. Something big. Bill turned to his sister and gently tried to ease his arm out of her grip.

“Raye,” he said, “what’s down there?”

“The basement,” she replied. But then, she flinched, curling herself against her brother’s arm. “No! Don’t go down there!”

“H-hey,” he cooed. “It’ll be all right. Come on. Look.”

He pressed the side of his index finger against her chin until she tilted her head up to look at him. With a smile, he pulled his hand away and flicked his fingers in the air to generate a spark of green light. As he spread his fingers, the light danced across his palm until a small, circular barrier hovered before Raye’s eyes.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked. Then, when she shook her head, he added, “Protect. It’s a move that will let me deflect all damage a pokémon tries to do to me.” He waved his hand to dispel the barrier before resting it on Raye’s head. “If anything happens, I’ll use that to keep myself safe, and I’ll come right back up here. Okay?”

She shook her head and whimpered, and Bill responded by pressing his forehead against hers.

“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered. “Now I need you to do me a favor. Stay on this couch, and no matter what happens, don’t move from it. Okay? I need to go down there to make sure whoever’s there won’t hurt you, but to do that, I need you to promise me you’ll stay right here where it’s safe. Got it?”

“No,” Raye muttered. “No, Nii-chan, don’t. Don’t go down there. It’s not safe. It’s not gonna—”

“Shh.” He eased his arm out her grip and gave her wrists a squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”

Leaving it at that, Bill pulled away and jumped over the couch. It didn’t take him long at all to reach the lip of the hole, and after a brief pause to stare into its depths, he took a deep breath and jumped down.

He landed with a bang seconds later. A rather ungraceful bang in that while he had intended to land on his feet, what he actually did was land hard on his side. Groaning, he slowly picked himself up and shook off the dull ache that ran through that side of his body, and as soon as he did, it was immediately replaced by a sharp, stabbing sensation in his eyes. He sucked in a breath and winced before slowly opening his eyes one more time to the dark basement.

Only it wasn’t dark. Or, rather, it was, but at the same time, he could see perfectly. It looked like everything was glowing in soft, gray tones—cardboard boxes, old equipment, rows of cabinets … everything. Although Bill had to pause briefly at the sight of the basement, it didn’t take long for him to figure out what it meant.

“Night vision.” Bill winced. “When we get out of this, you’re going to tell me everything you did to me.”

_Unfortunately, I cannot. That would make things easy._

Ignoring his partner, Bill dropped to all fours and pressed himself into the floor. For once, it wasn’t an unconscious action. Instead, it was an attempt to keep as little of himself exposed as possible. It wasn’t exactly the best plan of action for going into a diplomatic situation, but the last thing he wanted was to be shot at with another Bonemerang.

Besides, the other ixodida was nowhere to be seen, and in Bill’s mind, that was cause for slight alarm.

The hole it used to enter the building lay in the center of the room, just outside the circle of light formed by the gap in the ceiling. It smelled of asphalt and dirt and a sweet-sour scent Bill couldn’t immediately place. He crawled to the edge of the hole and peered down, first taking in the scent of the other ixodida. It was only after his first breath that he looked down into the void.

And that’s all it was. Deep, dark nothing.

But the scent was strong. The ixodida was still close, and the basement wasn’t that big. It couldn’t have gotten far.

Bill pulled away from the hole and sat up. As soon as he did, however, he froze at the feeling of something cold looming behind him. Yelping, he rolled out of the way, seconds before a blast of sand crashed down onto the spot where he had perched. Pulling out of the roll, Bill crouched and looked up, directly into the face of another ixodida.

The boy couldn’t have been much older than fourteen when he was infected. His round face still looked like a child’s, and there was almost a sense of bewilderment in his wide eyes. Yet that was the only human thing about him. The rest of him was either covered in spikes or scales, with the former running down the length of his back and the latter covering his front like a reptile’s. Sand snaked back from the edge of the hole to his hand. It collected there until it formed a bone-shaped mass that fit perfectly in the boy’s palm. Bill slowly stood until he reached his full height, and even then, he had to stare down to gaze at this boy’s face.

“Hold on, now,” Bill said slowly. He held up his hands, palms towards the other ixodida. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

The boy looked at Bill’s hands quickly. Then, without so much as a twitch, he dispelled the bone in his hand, allowing the sand that formed it to cascade onto his feet. At that, Bill relaxed slightly.

“That’s right. I’m a friend,” he said.

The boy stared at him for a long, silent while.

Bill inclined his head and held out a hand. “What’s your name?”

Nothing. Just a stare. An uneasy feeling sparked in Bill’s chest.

“Er,” he said, “l-let me start, then. My name is Bill. I’m a researcher from Kanto. I can help you get out of here. How does that sound?”

The boy’s eyes drifted from Bill’s hands to his face. Then, in the clear, high-pitched voice of a young man, the boy spoke.

“Monarch.”

Bill reeled back. “Monarch?”

_Your tail,_ Adam explained. _It must have noticed your tail. Or, well, the way you speak. Either is a dead giveaway, honestly._

“I-I don’t understand,” Bill replied, his eyes flicking from the boy to the side of the room and back again. In one of these glances, he saw the unmistakable outline of a staircase. So there was a way out if things went sour … as he was pretty sure they were right then.

“Monarch,” the boy repeated, a little louder.

_Allow me to explain in as few seconds as we have,_ Adam responded. _My kind is divided into two groups of people. There are the drones, who have dull-tipped tails and are marked by their simple-mindedness and obedience. Then you have us, those with blades at the ends of our tails. We are what you call monarchs—the intelligent ones. Drones take orders from monarchs … for the most part._

Bill relaxed again. “Oh. He noticed the blade at the end of my tail? Is that all? Well.” He flashed a smile at the boy. “Then I suppose I am a monarch.”

In response, the boy scurried backwards with a long hiss, and the sand twisted through the air and back into his hand until it formed another bone.

Bill’s smile faded. “Er. Adam?”

_Remember how I just said that drones take orders from monarchs for the most part?_

“Yes?”

_The “for the most part” actually means “unless they realize you are a rogue.”_

Bill swallowed hard for the second time that day. “And … and a rogue is …?”

The boy, crouching low now, parroted the word. “Rogue. _Rogue._ ”

_A rogue is an ixodida who defies the nature of our kind. And you just revealed yourself as one by smiling at this thing. On that note, duck._

Without thinking, Bill did what Adam asked, just as the boy flung the sand bone at him. It sailed cleanly over his head, dissipating in the seconds after it missed its target. In the meantime, Bill moved, swooping back to his full height as he put his hands back up.

“Hey! Wait! Why are you—”

The boy slammed a foot onto the cement floor. It instantly buckled under his touch as the earth itself shook. The floor beneath Bill’s feet lurched and pitched him forward, sending him sprawling at the boy’s feet. Twisting on the floor, he felt sand grains scrape across his skin, as if someone yanked sandpaper up his back. That alone elicited a sharp cry from him, but it was the realization of what it meant that made him jump. He scrambled, pulling himself to his hands and knees and diving out of the way a moment before another sand bone slammed into the ground where he had lay.

Somehow, Bill managed to pull himself back to his feet as the sand swirled around his opponent again. Frantically, Bill flung his hands out in front of him and concentrated to pool as much of his energy into his now-familiar move as he could. Green sparks danced in front of him, and a barrier of green light flashed across his field of view for a few seconds … before vanishing.

“What?!” Bill cried.

The boy flung the sand bone at him. He dodged—but just barely. Instead of blocking the bone completely, he felt the tip of it collide with his shoulder, grinding across the metal before dissolving behind him. Hot pain seared into the muscle underneath it, and he instinctively shouted and clutched at his shoulder. Around his toes, he could feel the sand pooling, snaking across the floor once again until it swirled up to the boy’s hand. With some effort, Bill flung his hands back out and concentrated again. This time, the green sparks fizzled as soon as they appeared.

“No,” he groaned. Then, focusing again, he watched as green sparks flickered in and out of existence in front of his hands. “No, no, no! Why isn’t it working now?!”

Adam said something at that point. Bill was sure of that, but before he could register what it was, another sand bone flew at his face. At once, he screamed, dove out of the way, and sprinted for cover. The ground beneath his feet buckled again, and with that, he was sent sailing head over talons into a bank of old medical pods. He crashed into the top of one and bounced over it and onto the floor behind it. And then, as if to add insult to injury, it toppled over on top of him, crashing into the pod next to it in the process to trap him on the floor.

And for a moment, there he lay, staring in a daze at the broken pod above him.

_That went well,_ Adam quipped. _Would you like me to take over?_

Once again, Bill opted to ignore the parasite. Instead, he ground his teeth together as he weakly squirmed beneath the weight of the pod.

“I don’t get it,” he muttered. “Why didn’t it work?”

_Protect? Tell me, Bill. What are the effects of Protect?_

Relaxing himself once again, Bill pushed a forearm into the pod and cast his eyes to the side. All he could see was the bent metal of the pod wall.

“Protect,” he recited. “Non-damaging normal-type move. Creates a barrier around a user to block all incoming attacks.”

_And?_

Above him, he could hear the faint scratching of claws on metal. The pungent smell of dirt and sand stung his nose, and he narrowed his eyes at the pod above him.

_Rate of success decreases on each consecutive use,_ Bill thought. _But that doesn’t make sense! I haven’t used it yet!_

_Is that so?_ Adam asked.

_Yes! Unless …_ Bill winced. _That couldn’t have counted. That wasn’t in battle, and it wasn’t even a full Protect! I was just showing Raye—_

_What Protect looks like. And in doing so, you used Protect,_ Adam replied. _So fantastic job, Bill. Shall we take a tally of all the bad decisions you have made so far? You chose to talk to a drone in a rather misguided attempt at diplomacy, you reveal yourself as a rogue in the process, and you went into battle knowing only one move—one that you set up to fail. Do you have any other fantastic ideas in that head of yours, or are you done trying to get us killed?_

The scratching moved swiftly above him, and soon, his ears filled with the screaming of metal. He couldn’t help but cry out and clutch his ears in pain as, little by little, the pod above him moved. Eventually, he saw the ghost-white sliver of a face peer down at him, and suddenly, his entire body went cold with fear.

_What do I do?_ he thought. _What do I do? What do I do?_

In his head, Adam growled. _What do you do? You fight._

_How? I don’t … I can’t!_

The child’s face disappeared. The pod groaned and shifted a little more, revealing long legs pushing its edge away from the wall.

_Bill,_ Adam said, _you have a power inside you. Use it._

_That’s not the issue!_ Bill protested. _I can’t fight him! He’s just like me inside! I don’t understand! Why is he attacking?!_

_Because the transformation destroys people. This is not a human anymore, Bill. You must fight it._

Bill shut his eyes. _I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t—_

The pod flipped over with a bang, exposing Bill to the cold of the open basement. He froze, his body tensing all over as he watched the boy reach down, down towards the jewel in Bill’s chest. In his head, Bill could hear Adam’s long hiss, and in his limbs, he began to feel nothing at all.

But then a blast of water hit the boy in the side of the head. He screamed and flailed and scuttled off the pod and away from Bill. Following the jet of water with his eyes, Bill sat up and watched his sister’s wartortle fire Water Gun after Water Gun at the other ixodida. Looking up, Bill could see Raye peek over the edge of the hole.

“I thought I told her to stay on the couch,” Bill sighed.

Adam released Bill and retreated into his head to quip, _The two of you have a lot in common. It is fascinatingly obvious that you two are related._

“Not now,” Bill spat as he climbed over the broken pod. Then, as he made his way towards the ground-type, he held his hands out again, palms open. “Please, listen to me! I’m not here to hurt you! I want to help you!”

The boy screeched … but not at Bill. Instead, all of his focus was on the wartortle. Once more, he pounded his feet into the ground, sending shockwaves through the basement. Bill gripped the pod behind him for stability, but Raye’s wartortle was instantly flipped off his feet. The turtle landed on his shell and skidded across the floor, riding the Earthquake as his limbs flailed wildly in open air. A long, loud cry burst from his lungs as soon as he slammed into a pile of boxes behind him, but thankfully, the pile served as a springboard to bounce him back onto his feet. Unfortunately, it was then that the wartortle hesitated, rubbing his head gingerly as he peered back at the ixodida. This was unfortunate only because in that time, sand quickly pooled around the boy’s feet and back into his hands.

And what was worse, he was looking straight at Raye. Raye, who had human vision. Raye, who couldn’t see into the dark. Raye, who had no idea an attack was coming for her.

“No!” Bill shouted.

He didn’t think about the next few seconds. They simply naturally to him. He swung himself around, and his feet sprang off the ground. His other hand, meanwhile, pulled back. Every muscle in it tensed as the armor of his arm began to glow a bright, hot red. Time felt like it slowed for him as he shot across the room, heading straight for the boy. Distance closed between them, and as soon as the other ixodida was within his reach, he swung his fist into the sand bone. It instantly shattered beneath his touch, spilling into a million grains at his feet while the red glow transferred to his other arm. He didn’t give the other ixodida time to react; rather, he twisted in the other direction to swing his glowing arm into the creature’s ribcage. Under his fist, he could feel flesh yielding and bone shattering, but he heard no scream. There wasn’t enough time. In the next instant, Bill was moving again, spinning himself behind the creature and hooking his arms underneath those of the other ixodida.

It was only then that time felt like it returned to normal, and it was only then that Bill began to hear the sharp, painful screaming. The sand creature thrashed and threw back his head, and from his throat burst round after round of terrible, nails-on-chalkboard _shrieking_. Bill grimaced. Without free hands, he could do nothing to protect himself from the sound, and that sound made his ears feel like they were about to bleed. Yet somehow, Bill remained standing. He braced himself against the stabbing pain in his head as he threw a glance towards Raye’s pokémon.

“Wartortle!” he cried. “Water Pledge! Now!”

The turtle hesitated, moving only to rise to his feet and trill an inquisitive, “War?”

“Listen to Nii-chan!” Raye shouted from the hole. “Please! Make it stop, Wartortle!”

At that, the turtle grunted and nodded. He turned back to the two ixodida and smirked. Then, he stomped a foot into the ground, almost mimicking the ground-type creature’s worst attack.

Bill braced himself for a second time, but right then, it wasn’t because of the screaming. He watched the blue lights of Wartortle’s attack flash across the floor until they formed a perfect circle beneath the ground-type ixodida. He listened as the ground rumbled. And then, he let go as geysers erupted from the floor and struck the ground-type at full-force. Taking a few steps backwards, he kept his eyes on his opponent as the creature flew into the air, hit the ceiling, and fell back towards the ground. The boy hit the cement with a bang, but by then, his screaming had stopped. He was silent. Unmoving.

Shuddering, Bill wrapped himself with his arms and began walking towards the staircase. Part of him felt sick as what he did finally began to register in his head. He had attacked an ixodida. He had hurt someone just like himself. How could he have done that?

After a few seconds, he was vaguely aware of the wartortle padding up to him. Breathing heavily, he kept his eyes on the staircase but somehow managed to croak out a response to the pokémon’s presence.

“Good … good job.”

He reached out for the stairs’ railing, and while he did touch it, he couldn’t feel it. At first, he thought it might have to do with his armor—that armor that he no longer wanted anything to do with—but then he realized he had no feeling in his arm. He jumped, drawing in a loud gasp while staggering away from the bannister, but as he moved, the numb feeling in his arm swept over him until he could feel nothing at all. Nothing, that is, except the distinct feeling of being pulled back to a point in his head. Suddenly, his body moved without him. It turned away from the stairs, moved quietly back to the boy, and crouched low over the creature’s prone form.

_Adam!_ Bill roared. _What are you doing?!_

“Invoking the protection clause,” Adam answered simply.

It reached down and turned the boy’s body over gingerly. Then, it stopped and fixed its eyes on the boy’s ankle. There, a small, red light pulled itself out from under the creature’s heel and began slicing its way up his leg.

“There is something else you do not know about my kind, Bill,” Adam said. “You must destroy our cores when you defeat us. Otherwise ...”

Adam smacked a hand over the red light. Its fingers curled into the boy’s flesh, piercing it as easily, as if the other host was made of clay. Bill could almost feel the other ixodida’s core—its roundness, its glossy surface, its heat.

“Otherwise,” Adam continued, “you place us all in grave danger.”

As soon as the last syllable left its lips, the parasite within him yanked the core out of the boy’s leg and wrapped its tail around his neck. They screeched—both the boy and the creature in Adam’s hand—but the host’s screams were cut short when Adam squeezed its tail. It turned away from the boy at that moment, but Bill knew exactly what it did—not only from the click of his tail segments meeting but also from the wet thud of a head smacking against concrete. Adam didn’t care, however—or it didn’t seem to. Its eyes were fixed on the parasite, watching its eight small legs flail beneath its bulbous, tick-like body. Sinewy tendrils swung between each claw-like appendage, and on the underside, a small hole, a mouth, opened and closed with frantic clacks.

“We breed quickly,” Adam commented. The words were meant in disdain, and Bill knew that from the way Adam’s thoughts felt. But the sound of its voice … there was something almost reverent about it. Almost as if Adam was in awe of itself. “We are insects. We use your body to survive, and when we no longer have use for you, we lay our young inside you and discard you. It is done so very easily. So cleanly. You feel nothing at all when you die. That is our last gift to you.” It turned the creature back over, holding it between two fingers. “Do you see why you must destroy us, Bill? If you do not, then we will destroy you. You must consume … or we will consume.”

By the time Adam reached those last few words, its voice was nothing but a low growl. When the last syllable faded in the quiet of the basement, Adam did the last thing Bill expected.

It slid the parasite into its mouth and bit down.

If Bill could scream, he would have right then. He would have screamed until his voice died out, until his throat went numb, until all breath in his lungs felt like fire. But he couldn’t then. All he could do was listen to the crunching of the parasite’s exoskeleton. Feel his body’s tongue toy with fragments of chitin. Hear himself swallow. The blood of the creature was hot in his throat, and it burned with a fire unlike anything else he had ever eaten. And when Adam gave him back full control, all he could taste was metal and acid, like a stinging mix of bile and blood. His next thought was to throw up, but somehow, he had the presence of mind not to stick his fingers in his mouth. They went to his stomach instead, pounding at his torso in a frantic attempt to get himself to reject what he had just consumed. He doubled over, forcing himself to gag, but nothing came up. The fire only went deeper, further down inside of him. And he could string no words together to describe how disgusting it felt.

“Oh gods,” he whimpered. “Oh gods no.”

He placed his hands flat on the floor and bent lower until his forehead pressed into the cement. His body shook, and he stared unblinkingly until his eyes watered. His throat continued to contract, morphing spasmodic heaves into gasping sobs.

He killed someone. _He killed someone._ He didn’t just attack someone. He attacked a _boy_ , and then he _killed_ that boy.

A door opened. Footsteps fell onto metal stairs. The wartortle barked and growled. A familiar scent of flowers mingled with the stench of death and blood.

“Raye,” Bill rasped. “Raye, don’t … don’t come any closer. You … can’t. Can’t. Go back. Please, gods. Go back.”

“Aww,” a sing-song voice responded. “You think I’m someone else!”

Bill looked up, his wide eyes shifting quickly from the floor to the newcomer.

The woman.

The girl with the drill-tail hair.

Domino smiled sweetly at him. Her hand reached up, sneaking underneath her cap to pull out a handful of small, metal balls. She flicked her wrist and flung the balls at Bill. He didn’t move. He simply let them surround him in a neat cube, four on the floor and four hovering in the air. Pink electricity sparked from one ball to the next.

And then the trap closed.

* * *

By the time the dust settled on Fallarbor Town, bodies littered the streets. A handful were the splattered remains of humans or pokémon lying at the feet of buildings. Many more, however, were the bullet-riddled corpses of ixodida, their cores pierced and oozing luminescent, blue blood. Lanette crouched over the body of an ixodida with a bashed-in head. All of her weight leaned into her crowbar, which was buried several inches deep in the monster’s thigh. Blue blood ran freely out of the core pierced by Lanette’s weapon, and it left hissing, bubbling trails across the ixodida’s skin. It was then that Lanette stood, placing one of her boots on the hip of her victim to pry her crowbar free. She swept herself off the ground, jumping into the air gracefully while a blur of blue and white swooped down to meet her. With a slight twist of her body, she hooked her legs easily around the altaria’s warm, blue form, right at the base of her pokemon’s long, slender neck. Her altaria craned that neck and crowed as she took to the skies with a powerful flap of her cloud-like wings.

As Lanette rode her dragon above the street, she took survey of the battle. Her human troops lined each rooftop, kneeling in a constant motion of shooting and reloading any firearm they had. Occasionally, when sand bones flew through the air or Earthquakes shook the foundation of their perches, soldiers would fall and crunch against the pavement below, but for the most part, the humans had the advantage. It wasn’t because they were able to maintain their footing on the rooftops, either. It was because of their companions. Interspersed with their human owners or swooping down to the fray below was a full legion of pokémon. Water-types. Grass-types. Ghost-types. Anything anyone could get their hands on in that part of Hoenn.

And the ixodida themselves? The ixodida were barely visible alive. Their bodies lay all over the road, certainly, but many of them dove in and out of the holes that pitted the surface of the street. They came up in waves and never in tight enough knots for Fallarbor’s forces to shoot down all at once, but even so, even if they tried to spread out when they surfaced, a number of them would be instantly consumed with water or leaves or bullets before they could so much as attack. Many more, however, appeared in their places and shook the ground Fallarbor stood on.

It was clear to Lanette that the battle wasn’t stopping anytime soon, so she scanned the group carefully for one particular creature. She doubted it would appear. After all, why would the ixodida make that kind of tactical error? Certainly, they were by no means human, and as far as she knew, she had yet to meet a truly intelligent one. Yet she knew that if the creature she was looking for appeared, its presence in the fight would risk the survival of the colony. Surely an animal would seek to preserve itself, right?

Yet it was Fallarbor’s only hope at winning the battle.

“Altaria!” she barked. “Fly down and—”

A scream cut her off. It started with only a few voices underground, but it rippled outward to all of the ixodida until their voices merged into one long, piercing screech.

And there it was. Climbing out of a hole carefully, cautiously at the end of town. It held out its hands, palms up as if it was a conductor and the others were its orchestra. Lanette didn’t need a closer look at the thing to know what it was.

“There you are.” She leaned into her dragon’s neck and extended an arm to point directly at the conductor. “Altaria! Use Aerial Ace to get me close!”

With a song-like cry, Altaria folded her wings and cut through the air until she was mere feet from the pavement. The ixodida were in motion by then, scrambling towards the easternmost holes under fire from both humans and pokémon. Those that made it to their leader dove beneath the ground, save for a select few that gathered close to it to form a shield. This didn’t stop Lanette, however, as she drew her crowbar up and prepared to swing it directly at the creature’s head. It stared at her blankly before pushing through its throng of followers. One of its arms swung towards Lanette, and a ball of mud suddenly erupted from its palm and escaped its claws. The ball missed Altaria by mere inches, but it hit Lanette’s shoulder dead-on, knocking her clean off her bird. At that, the creature’s entourage leapt upon Altaria, pinning the dragon to the ground. Lanette, meanwhile, slammed onto her back on the road. She groaned and picked herself up slowly, turning her head to gaze at her struggling, squawking pokémon. All attacks ceased at that point, Lanette noticed, and honestly, she couldn’t blame anyone. One false shot, and either she or her altaria would be killed. And it was because of that that she felt a pang of true terror.

“No!” she screamed.

The leader crouched down and reached for Lanette. She shrieked and slapped his hand away.

“If you hurt her,” she snapped, “I swear—”

“Let us leave peacefully,” the leader told her.

“What?” she huffed.

“You are their monarch, are you not?” the creature asked. “Tell them not to attack. I have a warning for you now. One of our own is dead, and it was not by your hand. We have no interest in this battle so long as the force that killed ours remains intact.”

Lanette narrowed her eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“This is our warning to you. Destroy the rogue or deliver it to us, and we will ignore the fact that one of yours has trespassed onto our territory. That is all.”

With that, it turned and dashed into one of the holes. Its entourage followed shortly thereafter, releasing the squawking, indignant Altaria. Lanette raced forward and grabbed her dragon by the shoulders to stop her from going after the ixodida. The trainer, meanwhile, merely stared at the hole, listening carefully for the sound of any new ixodida approaching. For a long while, nothing happened. No one moved. No one spoke. No one made so much of a sound.

Then, there was a bark. Lanette looked over her shoulder at its source: a sleek, white dog-like creature staring at her with grave, red eyes. Instantly, Lanette recognized it. Only one person in Fallarbor owned an absol, after all.

“Raye,” she whispered.

The absol barked at her for a second time before turning and racing away. Once it did, a cold feeling of dread hit Lanette’s heart.

“No …” Lanette’s face twisted. Her teeth clenched into a sneer, and her eyes narrowed at the retreating dog. “Bill. _You idiot._ ”

Thus, Lanette Chastain, ice queen of Fallarbor, bolted after the absol with her altaria flying low behind her.


	13. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the value of a properly sharpened unconventional weapon is thoroughly explored.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 10_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: CORRESPONDENCE_  
 _DESIGNATION: N/A_  
 _DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING BETWEEN COMMITTEE MEMBERS 1 THROUGH 5. MARKED FOR DESTRUCTION PENDING ARCHIVAL OF DOCUMENTS PERTAINING TO THE ADAM INCIDENT._  
 _DATE-TIME: [ERROR]_

_C-01  
Might as well start things off formally. Four, what’ve you got?_

_C-04  
Sir, reports from Recon Team Delta-Five have detected activity in central Hoenn._

_C-01  
Maybe I should reiterate. What have you got that’s actually news?_

_C-04  
Well, sir, according to Team Delta-Five, there has been a spike in activity in Sector Six, Four, and Twelve._

_C-01  
Huh. Five, what’s the research arm think of it?_

_C-05  
We suspect the SE-605’s movement is linked to Codename Lilith’s activity._

_C-01  
Five, every day, I’m astounded by the brilliance of my colleagues here._

_C-05  
As a reminder, sir, Codename Lilith has been dormant for the past three months. Our teams are currently working around the clock to decipher the call she issued from Point Zero. Currently, we theorize it may be akin to climatic responses elicited from earth-born pokémon._

_C-01  
So you’re saying they’re migrating south for the winter._

_C-05  
Yes, sir._

_C-01  
Right. Three, please have something intelligent to say._

_C-03  
Two’s not here._

_C-01  
Never mind. Four—_

_C-03  
All due respect, sir, I don’t think it’s wise to trust Two._

_C-01  
My God. An intelligent comment._

_C-03  
What do we know about Two or her operation, sir? You know who she reports to. The last thing we need is political interference._

_C-01  
Acknowledged. I’m about as happy as you are with it, Three, but Two could be our most valuable asset, considering our situation._

_C-03  
But is it really wise to rely on Two?_

_C-01  
No. But we don’t have much of a choice, do we? Leave Two to me. How’re your field agents?_

_C-03  
Ready and loyal, sir._

_C-01  
Your sarcasm has been noted, Three. Obviously, we’ll need men in the sectors recon has kindly outlined for us._

_C-03  
I’ll need recon to send a scout party ahead of us to clear the way._

_C-04  
Consider it done._

_C-01  
Good. In the meantime, Four, get me in contact with the current Hoenn champion and any champion currently within the regional borders._

_C-04  
Sir?_

_C-01  
You heard me. We could use some firepower. Three’s right, and we’ll need a failsafe._

* * *

Thom’s cell phone beeped when he pressed the red button on its screen. The motion was done absent-mindedly. His attention was split between petting Manectric and watching the scene beyond the window he leaned against. Thumping his forehead against the glass, he sagged his shoulders and grimaced.

“Crap. Missed the battle completely,” he muttered. “Officer Jenny’s gonna chew me out again.”

Pushing against the window, he stretched and clasped his hands behind his head. Manectric lifted his muzzle in the air and emitted a curious growl at the sudden lack of petting.

“Oh well,” Thom said. “Not like you coulda done anything anyway. No offense, buddy.”

Manectric tilted his head and whined. Upon hearing his partner, Thom snorted and stood, letting the floorboards creak as loudly as possible under his weight. There was no use hiding now. That he knew.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “What, you think I would’ve whipped out one of the others? Yeah right. The way we’re going, one of ‘em would’ve been shot first. Or killed by Lanette.” He cast a glance over his shoulder, towards the window. “Damn. How many was that this time around? She must’ve killed, I dunno, sixteen ixodida, maybe? That’s gotta be a record.” Heaving a sigh, he let his shoulders sag a little more. “Officer Jenny’s gonna chew me out for _that_ too.”

The dog barked and rose to his four paws. With another grin towards his pokémon, Thom pocketed his phone.

“Well, boy. Let’s get this over with, right?”

Manectric responded with a low whine but padded after Thom faithfully, and from there, the two crossed the empty room in silence. At the same time, Thom could hear the sounds of footsteps pounding frantically down the stairs beyond the door. He hesitated, waited for a few beats for the footsteps to die down, and finally reached for the doorknob. Upon opening the door, he muscled his way past groups of people and pokémon rushing down the stairs in order to climb up, towards the roof. No one acknowledged him, and that, in his mind, was perfectly fine. He never liked attention anyway. It really was easier since he came to Fallarbor, since people started learning he wasn’t going to be a hero. Not like Steven or Wallace or any of the other strong trainers of Hoenn. He was just Thom. Just the same goofball as he was before the whole ixodida thing started.

And that was okay. Because it meant he could handle things the way he normally would: not as a leader like Officer Jenny or a loner like Lanette but instead as someone who helped. Someone who could be relied on to lend his strength in a team. Someone like …

“Nurse Joy!” he shouted as he snatched her arm.

She stopped short, in mid-step on her mad dash down the stairs, to swivel around and stare at Thom. Chansey, who had been following her, nearly slammed into the both of them but managed to hop awkwardly down a few steps and come to a stop beside Manectric.

“Thom?!” Nurse Joy cried. “Thom, what are you doing here?! Where have you been?!”

“Sorry. Got lost,” Thom lied. He didn’t have a taste for lying, but he couldn’t very well tell her where he actually was. After all, he gave his word he wouldn’t.

She seemed to sense the lie, but all she did in response was raise an eyebrow and study him carefully.

“Right. Thom, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to talk to you,” she said as she gently pulled her arm out of his grasp. “There was a fight.”

“I know. How’d it go?”

“... We won.”

Thom smiled. “Oh, really? Awesome!”

“No, it’s not awesome.” Joy sighed. “Thom, there are a lot of pokémon on the street that are injured right now. I need to get to them, okay? So unless this is important—”

“Where’s Officer Jenny?” he asked.

Joy turned away from Thom and started down the staircase. She didn’t bother to look back and check if he was following. “Heading to the pokémon center, I assume. Raye’s absol appeared at the end of the battle, and Lanette went after it. Officer Jenny is going after her.” At that, she threw a glare over her shoulder to see Thom following her after all. “And I’d suggest _you_ find a way to beat her there. You’re not supposed to be here, you know. You have a job to do in situations like these.”

Thom picked up the pace to match Joy’s. “This is about Rachel,” he said.

“Of course it’s about Rachel. Where is she?”

“Back at the pokémon center.”

“Alone?!”

“Nah. With Bill.”

Joy glared at him again. “You left Rachel with an ixodida?!”

“Hey! Don’t snap at me!” Thom protested. “I thought you liked Bill!”

“I never said I’d trust him enough to leave him alone!”

“Lanette seemed okay with it!”

“Thom, that’s Lanette!”

“I know! But she—”

“And she’s not the one I’m worried about. When Officer Jenny gets word that you left your post ….”

Thom stopped dead in his tracks. He thought that over for a second, visualizing exactly what Officer Jenny would say when she found out he had left a child with an ixodida.

“Aw, _crap_.”

Officer Jenny was, without a doubt, going to chew him out for that one too.

* * *

In the basement of the pokémon center, very little had changed for the past five minutes. Bill still lay at the bottom of the cage of light, unmoving and silent. His eyes were wide open, but they were vacant and fixed with a blank expression on Domino’s boots. Domino, meanwhile, stood facing the cage with one hand on her hip and the other playing with her cell phone. Her routine, for those few minutes, had been rather repetitive. First, she would dial a number on her phone. Second, she would press the call button and bring the device to her ear. Third, she would wait for a few seconds, only to be rewarded with the click of a call aborted before it was even placed. Fourth, she would grumble, curse, and repeat step one all over again. After the sixth cycle, she lowered her arm and snapped her phone shut.

“Typical. No reception. Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

She paused, frowned at the box, and kicked it hard. The walls sparked, and ripples of light rushed from the sole of her foot across the entire surface of the box. Yet its occupant didn’t even flinch.

“Hey!” she snapped. “I’m talking to you!”

Bill moved—but only to curl his tail slowly and shakily over his legs. Domino groaned and smacked her forehead against the wall of the box in response.

“Well, isn’t that just great?” she muttered. “I can’t get through to headquarters, _and_ this ixodida is defective. And it’s not like we can just reprogram this thing, either. I’m never going to hear the end of this.”

She turned on her heel and walked a few paces away from the box. With a flick of her wrist, she flipped the phone open again. As she turned it over to key in the same phone number again, a jet of water tore it out of her hand and sent it clattering across the floor. Right away, her expression morphed into one of anger as she whirled around to face her attacker.

“Who did that?!” she demanded.

There, just a few feet from Domino, stood Wartortle, bracing himself with three claws on the ground and the third angled in the air. He smirked just before he inhaled and shot another jet of water at Domino’s face. At the last second, she dodged effortlessly and swung her arm across her body. Her fingers snapped towards Wartortle, and a black tulip flew from her hand, aimed directly at the turtle’s head. Before it struck, a red light enveloped Wartortle. His form faded, shrank, and vanished completely, allowing the needle to sail through empty space. Surprised, Domino swiveled around, only to see a small figure standing on the stairs. Raye stared back, wide-eyed and clutching a poké ball with both hands. For a few seconds, they were frozen in perfect silence until, finally, Domino smiled.

“Why, hello there, cutie,” she said. “Why don’t you give me that poké ball so I don’t have to hurt you?”

Naturally, Raye turned and started for the first floor. Before she could climb half the stairs, Domino bolted after her and gracefully jumped up the steps until she blocked Raye’s path. Raye stopped, trembling in front of the Rocket agent.

“What’s your rush?” Domino purred. “I’m not going to hur—”

A bang followed by an electric crackle interrupted her train of thought. Looking up, Domino saw Bill standing in the middle of the cage, his tail switching in agitation.

“Oh? And what do we have here? What, you don’t like it when I threaten this little cutie pie?”

Domino draped her arms over Raye and held her close. Raye squirmed in her grasp, but the agent held her like a vice as she smiled at the cage. In response, Bill lifted his hands as swirling, silver orbs of light formed in his palms. Without a word, he aimed both of his hands at opposite corners of the box.

“Ah ah ah!” Domino scolded. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

As she drew out the last syllable, she flicked one of her wrists, and another black tulip slid into her fingers. She aimed the sharpened point of the stem at Raye’s neck, drawing it close enough to nick her skin. Slowly, she pushed Raye closer, down the stairs and across the floor until a foot of space stood between them and the cage. All the while, Raye whimpered and craned her neck as a drop of her blood trickled down her throat.

“Make one wrong move, and this little thing’s as good as gone,” Domino said. “You wouldn’t want that, now, would—”

She stopped. It was then that she could see Bill’s face. And it was then that she could see in full, plain view that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Bill was awake. He was angry. He was lucid. But his expression was completely, totally, and inhumanly blank.

Although she wasn’t fully conscious of it, Domino felt her mouth move and her voice hiss out of her throat.

“Oh _sh_ —”

The orbs of light flew directly at the devices and exploded with a brilliant burst. Seconds later, the walls of the box rippled, and the edges flickered. Yet the box didn’t fade. It stood, solid as ever, humming as it always had been. At that sight, Domino relaxed a little, tilting her head with a smile.

“Hmph. Nice try. Guess Zager was useful for something after a—”

Something dropped from the hole in the ceiling and landed with a thump behind Domino. Turning, she watched as a small, bulbous shape rose to its feet, illuminated by the light streaming through the opening in the ceiling. Domino blinked, watching the gloom tilt its head a little and blubber out part of its name.

“Raye!” a new voice shouted from the hole. “Hold your breath!”

The girl in Domino’s arms inhaled deeply, in time with the gloom just a few feet away. But unlike Raye, the gloom did something else: it exhaled a burst of sparkling, blue powder.

“Oh crap!” Domino shouted.

She shoved Raye away from her and covered her mouth frantically, but by then, she had already inhaled part of the dust cloud. It didn’t take long after that before she fell to the floor with a thud, having succumbed to a deep sleep.

The next thing to drop from the ceiling was a red light that engulfed and drew the gloom back to the floor above them. Shortly afterwards, an absol dropped from the hole, somersaulted in the air, and flung a pair of tornadoes at the floor beneath it. The winds ripped through the basement, blasting away the remaining powder. Raye doubled over, bracing herself against the light cage to keep her footing, and when the gale died down, she drew her hands away from her mouth and sank to her knees. Absol padded to her and nuzzled her, licking her face as she wormed her fingers through its fur. Raye didn’t move from this position when she heard the basement door open or the sound of footsteps on the stairs. And she still didn’t move, even as Lanette came to a stop next to her.

“Raye?” Lanette asked softly. “Are you all right?”

She nodded and buried her face in her pokémon’s mane. And for that brief second, Lanette grinned, but as soon as she transferred her gaze to Domino, her expression faded back into a stone coldness. With a swift kick, she turned the unconscious agent over onto her back before stooping down to run her hands along Domino’s body. She stooped low, using her body as a shield against Raye’s eyes as her hands slipped into Domino’s hidden pockets and drew from them the cell phone and tulips, all of which she quickly slipped into one of the pouches on her belt. It was only when she was satisfied with her search that she shifted in a fluid motion, rising to her full height and turning her attention to the box before shoving Domino away with a final push of her foot.

“You,” she said to the box’s captive. “What’s going on here?”

Inside, the creature smiled awkwardly and tilted his head. “Good to see you too, Lanette.”

There was a short moment of silence as the two stared at each other.

“Bill?” Lanette asked.

“Of course it’s me.”

“Is that so?”

An exasperated sigh. “Would you like me to give you the password again?”

“In front of Raye?”

“If that’s what it’ll take to make you believe me.”

Another silence. Lanette narrowed her eyes.

“Raye. Go over to the boxes and cover your ears,” she said.

With a questioning look at her guardian, Raye did as she was told. Lanette waited, keeping her eyes on Raye as the girl stood, walked to a pile of boxes, and plopped herself down with her absol padding after her. Raye clasped her hands over her ears and turned away, and a second later, she began to hum. Once she was certain that Raye wasn’t listening, Lanette turned her attention back to the box.

“Listen here, you parasitic abomination, I will open this box and _skin you alive_ if you don’t stop playing games with me,” she hissed.

Immediately, any trace of expression on Bill’s face vanished. “Astute, but you will quickly find that skinning us is quite impossible.”

“Then I’ll find worse things to do with you,” Lanette sneered. “Let me talk to Bill.”

“That would also be impossible.”

“I’ll start by breaking your horns off.”

“My, my. You _do_ have quite a temper.” Adam lifted its chin. “But no. It is quite impossible because Bill is asleep.”

“Then wake him up.”

“I tried. He refused.”

“What do you mean ‘he refused’? What the hell did you do to him?”

“Look behind this cage.”

“What?!”

Adam only nodded towards the back wall of the box. Lanette shifted, creeping along the edges of the cube without taking her eyes off the creature inside it. When she wandered to the back, she finally tore her eyes away from it …

… And saw the body on the floor. She froze, tensing all at once until, slowly, it registered in her head that the corpse was real.

“An ixodida,” she breathed. “It’s … it’s …”

“Dead,” Adam said simply. “Its core is destroyed as well. You are free to check if that would make you feel comfortable.”

Lanette didn’t even wait for Adam’s permission to search the body before she was on her knees. She turned the body over roughly and quickly scanned every inch of it. Sure enough, as mutilated as the corpse was, besides the head, there was only one missing body part.

“It’s gone,” she breathed. “The core … you’re telling the truth.”

She looked up at Adam, into its blank eyes. It merely stared down at her steadily.

“Of course I am. I find it inconvenient to lie,” Adam told her.

Lanette turned her head away slowly, her mind struggling to process what she was seeing. An ixodida killing another ixodida was virtually unheard of. Even in groups with more than one type of member, ixodida attacked as a single unit. It wasn’t conducive to their survival to fight among themselves. Or, at least, Lanette assumed that was the case.

But then, the longer she dwelled on it, the more another horrifying thought came to mind. It took a few seconds, but at last, it surfaced, filling her entire body with a cold dread.

“Oh gods,” she breathed. “Bill … that’s why he won’t wake up.” She turned to Adam. “You made him watch!”

“Apparently, he was not ready to see such a thing,” Adam replied. “It is strange, honestly. Bill has seen pokémon do worse things to one another, yet the death of a creature similar to us by our own hands was too much for him.”

Lanette jumped to her feet. “He was a pacifist, you monster! Of course he wouldn’t be okay with watching a murder!”

“Is it a murder?” Adam quipped. “From what I understand, you see my kind as bloodthirsty abominations as it is. You admitted to killing us yourself. Why would you find eradicating my kind perfectly acceptable for you but not for Bill?”

She stopped. Her gaze fell towards the floor, and she gritted her teeth. Lanette couldn’t say a word. She couldn’t admit to this thing that her situation was complicated.

“Do you wish to hear my opinion?”

She didn’t, but she glanced at Adam all the same.

It held its head at an incline again, almost as if it was trying to look curious. “I think you are a very guarded woman. This is your way of protecting Bill. In your opinion he was not meant to experience this world—our world. A world where my kind and yours fight for territory. A world where both my people and yours die brutally and where children like the little one over there must live in fear every single day. Your world was innocent and safe before my kind came to it, and you hate us for disrupting the balance of your planet.” Adam hesitated. “Am I close?”

Lanette narrowed her eyes and stared at the corpse again. “Bill is too soft for this war. As is Raye.”

“And you are not?”

“I was too, but I had to change.”

“Are you afraid that Bill and Raye will change?”

Lanette lowered her head. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you and I are monsters, and they shouldn’t have to turn into monsters like us,” she spat. “You shouldn’t have let Bill watch.”

“If I did not, then I would not have been able to protect him,” Adam answered. “The fact of the matter is that there is a dead ixodida in this room. I took care of its core. Therefore, I was the one who protected both Bill and Raye. Think about that for a moment.”

Lanette said nothing. She merely used all of her energy to glare at the creature in the box.

“There is nothing you can do to save Bill. This is his fate.” Adam held up both of his hands, palms out. “You know this. However, I can promise you that it will not be hellish for him. There is a complicated contract between us that protects what little is left of Bill’s humanity.”

“A contract?” Lanette muttered. “What are the terms?”

Adam lowered its hands. “The privacy of the contract is sacred to the parties involved. I cannot tell you.”

Lanette scoffed. “Of course you can’t.”

“However,” Adam continued, “I can give you an idea. I propose a contract between us.”

“No,” Lanette replied flatly.

“Listen to the terms first, child, before you pass judgment.”

“I am not a …” Lanette took a deep breath. Her eyes fell back on Adam, staring at him calmly. “Go on.”

“Freedom,” Adam stated. “In exchange for my cooperation, I want you to release us from this box and allow us to walk freely within your ranks for as long as we wish to remain here.”

“Cooperation?” Lanette inquired.

“Yes. I am an ixodida, am I not? I can provide valuable insight into my kind.”

Lanette stepped forward and leaned into the box. “And why would you do that?”

If Adam could smile, it would have right then. As it stood, a shadow passed over its face. Its expression didn’t change, but something about it seemed more … bitter to Lanette.

“We have a common enemy,” Adam replied.

“Is that so?” Lanette asked quietly.

“Yes.” Adam raised its eyes to the ceiling. “The empress. You did realize that there is a queen among us, did you not?”

For a long while, Lanette said nothing again. But then, slowly, she grinned. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Then join me.” It held a hand out, palm up, claws glinting in the dim light of the cage. “Free me, and let us be allies. Together, we will bring the empress to her knees.”

Shadows shifted across Lanette’s face as she lowered her head slightly. With graceful steps, she turned, walked back around the box, and clasped her hands together behind the small of her back.

“No,” she said.

“No?” Adam responded.

“Not that I would trust you enough to agree to your terms in the first place,” Lanette told the parasite, “but the contract you’re proposing is incredibly one-sided, don’t you think?”

“Is that so?”

Lanette leaned her head back, rolling it just enough to glance at Adam out of the corner of her eye. “You want me to free you in exchange for your cooperation. How is that an incentive if I have no idea whether or not you have any valuable information for me? I know about your cores, and clearly, I know about how you organize yourselves. What else would I need to know to defeat the empress?”

“You misunderstand. I am not offering information in exchange for freedom. I am offering the safety of your people.”

Chuckling, Lanette turned her head away again. “It’d be easier to leave you in this box, lock the door, and let you die. Or kill you quickly. Whichever you would prefer.”

“I knew you would say that.”

Lanette smiled. “I take it, then, that you’ve run out of offers?”

“No. I have one more.”

Behind her, Lanette could hear an electric crackling. Her smile faded, and she reached up to grasp the handle of her crowbar. Before she could draw it, however, she heard something else—something that made her stop dead.

“Lanette.”

A soft voice. One with emotion, not the dull monotone of the parasite. Sad. Plaintive. Lanette slowly turned to see the creature stand at the front wall of the box. Both of its hands were pressed into the wall’s surface, and its head was bowed once more. But Lanette could see part of its expression—the way its lips parted slightly, the way it furrowed its eyebrows, the way its eyes glinted in fear.

“Lanette,” it said. “Please. You’ve got to help me.”

She gripped the handle of her crowbar harder. As she pulled the crowbar from its sheath, her weapon sang.

“Stop it,” she barked.

It lifted its head to stare into her eyes. Lanette stopped, holding the crowbar in both hands as she stared into her partner’s face. It looked too human, too much like Bill. She felt her stomach turn at that thought, and for that, she gripped her crowbar harder.

But it was a show of weakness, and she knew as soon as she recognized it as such that she would regret it.

“Please,” he—it—begged. “Please don’t kill me. I’m still in here, Lanette. Help me. Please.”

“Stop it!”

She slammed her crowbar against the box. A shower of sparks rained from where the cage was struck, but she didn’t seem to notice as she bared her teeth at the creature. She didn’t care how much noise she was making. She didn’t care whether or not Raye was listening. She didn’t even notice as the girl uncovered her ears and peeked over the boxes she hid behind. Lanette’s entire world for that moment was comprised of herself, the box, and the creature inside it and nothing more.

“Stop it,” she hissed. “Stop using his voice.” She struck the box again, sending another shower of sparks into the air. “Stop using his body!” Another strike. “Stop using him!”

Her crowbar cut through the air and slammed one more time into the side of the box. The wall flashed, and her arms jerked back, nearly throwing her onto the floor. Somehow, she jerked herself to the side just in time to regain her footing, and when she did, she threw her eyes back towards the box. She raised her crowbar, readying it to strike once more. Inside the box, Adam’s facial expression faded into the same blank, neutral gaze, and that act—that dissolution of humanity—fuelled the fire that Lanette could feel inside her chest. As she raised her crowbar, she screamed. Her arms tensed. And then, she swung.

“Wait! Don’t!”

Lanette stopped short at the sound of the new voice. Looking down, she saw Raye slide between her and the box. Raye spread her arms wide and looked up at Lanette with pleading eyes.

“Don’t do it!” Raye said. “Please don’t hurt Nii-chan!”

“Raye, this is an ixodida,” Lanette stated. It wasn’t an argument. It was an astounded statement. This was Raye. Lanette knew how afraid of the ixodida she was. Yet here Raye stood, begging Lanette not to hurt one.

Raye shook her head. “It’s Nii-chan. That’s all that matters.”

Lanette lowered the crowbar to her side and slowly looked back towards the parasite. It stood motionless behind Raye, its face just as blank and stony as ever. But something in its eyes looked almost knowing to Lanette. Wise, even.

“Tch.” She twirled her crowbar with one hand and stepped towards a corner of the box. “Using Bill as a bargaining chip. You know how to negotiate, parasite.”

She drove the sharpened end of her weapon into the ball at the bottom corner of the box. It sank instantly, crushing the ball all at once. Sparks danced as the edges of each wall flared to life and then fizzled into nothingness. The walls vanished, and the balls hovering on the top corners dropped to the concrete floor and rolled uselessly away. Lanette kicked the broken one at her feet, sending metal fragments flying away from her.

“Well?” she asked. “Uphold your end of the deal, then.”

She turned her head, just in time to see the expression on the creature’s face blank. But it wasn’t the same kind of blankness that it maintained throughout their conversation. This one was a vacant one, with its eyes glazing over before fluttering shut.

“Bill?” Lanette murmured.

The ixodida’s body collapsed sideways, sprawling into the floor with a loud bang. Raye reacted first, diving to her knees as her hands frantically reached for her brother. At her side, her absol appeared, pacing around the two quietly.

“Nii-chan?” Raye cried. Her hands grabbed his shoulder and shook him vigorously. “Nii-chan, wake up!”

Lanette sheathed her crowbar and turned her eyes towards the hole in the ceiling. Through it, she could see Officer Jenny lean down, watching her with a steady gaze.

“Officer Jenny,” she said. “Are Thom and Nurse Joy with you?”

“No,” Jenny responded gruffly. “Thom should be here, but—”

“That’s not important right now. I know Thom left his post, and I pardon him for it. But we need him to move a steel-type and Nurse Joy to treat it. Ask her to prepare one of the trainer dormitories as well.”

“Lanette …” Officer Jenny reached down and grasped the edge of the hole. “Are you sure about that?”

“How much of our conversation did you hear?” Lanette asked.

“Almost all of it, but—”

“Then yes. I’m sure.”

The sound of scratching—boots against dirt, she gathered—caused her to tear her eyes away from Officer Jenny. She shifted her gaze to the hole in the floor, just in time to see a silhouette vanish into the darkness below. Sweeping one of her feet to the side confirmed her suspicion: the Rocket was gone. Although she was tempted to puzzle over how the agent might have roused so quickly, her attention instead shifted to the girl curled up over the ixodida on the floor. Listening to Raye’s quiet pleas, Lanette closed her eyes and exhaled.

“That’s all,” she said. “Go.”

She waited until she could hear Officer Jenny’s footsteps on the floor above her. Then, she turned her head slightly and clenched her fists.

“If I find out you cheated me, parasite …” she muttered.

But the truth was she had no idea how she would end that sentence.

* * *

Inside the tent within the dreamscape Adam shared with Bill, the air was hot and humid, and the strong odor of incense and perfume hung like a heavy cloud. It was the kind of heat that one could see, the kind that distorted colors into undulating waves. Bill watched reds and purples and golds through the haze of an incense burner, but nothing in particular registered for him. He merely lay on his side in the nest of cushions at the center of the tent, where he allowed images to come to him. Because of that, he didn’t even notice when Adam materialized next to him.

“You are in my seat,” it said.

Bill did not move. He did not speak. All he did was lay where he was, on his side, watching the colors through the smoke of the incense burner beside him.

For that, Adam stamped a foot into his side and pushed in an attempt to shake him.

“Did you hear me? You are in my seat. Move.”

Nothing. After several moments, Adam stopped shaking Bill with its foot. It stood still, arms crossed and head bowed. Another moment passed before it sighed and sat down on the cushions beside him. Its fingers drew the hookah’s mouthpiece to its lips, and its sucked on it until the rolling bubbles broke the silence. Without removing the mouthpiece, it looked to its host and began to speak.

“You did well in that battle,” it purred. “In fact, I might even say that I am impressed with your performance, particularly in your choice of a move. Most members of our clan begin with Metal Claw. It takes skill and willpower to overcome the weight of our skin and use a fast-paced attack such as Bullet Punch.” Adam removed the mouthpiece and lifted its eyes to the ceiling. “Your adaptability is admirable. It came naturally to you, did it not? You are learning how to use this body even faster than any other host I have had the pleasure of encountering.”

A long silence answered Adam. Its stony face grew colder as it turned back to its host.

“How impertinent,” it drawled. “I give you a compliment, and you choose to ignore me.”

Bill tensed. One of his hands clutched the cushion beside his face, and his legs drew themselves closer to the rest of his body. But these were only slight movements drawn out over several more seconds than Adam thought they needed to be.

And still, Bill did not say a word.

Adam drew another breath through the hookah pipe, and as it exhaled curling, silver smoke, it grumbled its response.

“Get up.”

Bill refused to respond, but Adam hadn’t expected much. It set aside the hookah pipe and exhaled once more, this time slowly and cleanly.

“I am through with repeating myself, and that includes concerning what is and is not necessary for our survival,” it said. “I know very well what this is about. You are suffering from misplaced guilt over having killed one of my kind. You confuse me, Bill. You can be the ideal host in one situation but the weakest choice in the next. I can see into your mind. I can feel you fighting against what you have just experienced, but the more you reject it, the less you learn from it.”

Something happened this time, much to Adam’s surprise. Bill curled up in a tighter ball and whispered nearly inaudibly into the cushion he embraced. Watching him carefully, Adam sighed, drew the hookah’s mouthpiece to its lips again, and bit down on the plastic tip.

“Perhaps you do not understand this space that well,” Adam began. “I cannot blame you if that is the case. Although you have had experiences with psychic pokémon, you do not possess such abilities of your own, and thus, a psychic plane may be beyond your level of comprehension.” It laced its fingers together and stared straight ahead, all while moving the mouthpiece to the center of its jaws. “This place is our haven, a place where we may speak freely. Your thoughts are mine here, so long as you do not make an effort to guard them. So having said that, what are you thinking right now?”

It took a moment, and when Bill’s voice came, it was barely a whisper. “I’m …”

“Do not resist it,” Adam told him. “Face it.”

For another long while, Bill was silent. Adam shifted the mouthpiece to one corner of its mouth and half-closed its eyes. It was almost certain that Bill was retreating into himself again when his soft voice finally surfaced.

“I’m a good person.”

Adam removed the mouthpiece altogether and looked at its host again. Bill curled into an even tighter ball, and Adam could see that his entire body was trembling.

“I want … I want to think that …”

“Good. Evil.” Adam propped its chin on a hand. “You humans have the most inconvenient definitions of morality. Nothing is ever simple for you, is it? Nothing is ever classified as necessary and not necessary. You all overcomplicate things.”

When Bill stopped shaking, Adam could feel it. It could feel a coldness wash over its mind—a kind of coldness that burned and bit its skin. In response, Adam clicked its teeth against the mouthpiece.

“He was just a kid,” Bill murmured.

Adam sucked on the pipe. “And?”

“You … you killed it. And you …” He tensed. “I couldn’t do anything! You killed him. _You killed him._ ”

The parasite opened its mouth. Perfect smoke rings floated between its lips and into the open air. “And?”

Bill froze. His body relaxed, and he twisted to stare at Adam in a stunned, slack-jawed silence. Adam regarded him carefully before drawing the pipe from its mouth.

“What?” it asked. “Did you truly care for the little thing?”

The floor beneath the parasite heaved and tossed it into the air. Floorboards thrust upwards and twisted, melting together to form a pair of writhing, black tentacles. Adam allowed itself to be lifted and tossed into the air—and even then, its only reaction was to narrow its eyes at Bill. Even as the tentacles constricted around its form, it only stared down at its host as Bill shakily rose to his feet. He stared back with features twisted in pure, venomous rage.

“He was not a thing,” Bill snarled. “He was a human being, and you killed him.”

Adam’s face remained unchanged—blank, with narrow eyes casting an unreadable glare down at its host. “And you believe that this will avenge it?”

Bill held up his hands, palms towards the growths. His fingers bent into claws, and as his arms tensed and shook, the tentacles wrapped tighter around Adam. Yet nothing fazed the parasite; it continued to stare blankly at Bill, even as its bones audibly cracked under the pressure.

“You,” Bill growled. “You monster! I will never … You will not …”

“Never be like me?” Adam said—casually, calmly, as if its breathing wasn’t even restricted by the tentacles. “Never kill anyone else? Bill, I tire of your childishness. Believing that my actions were anything but necessary. Do you not trust me?”

Bill’s fingers curled a little more, causing the tentacles to constrict harder. “Shut up.”

“I can see into your mind,” Adam replied. “I can see your thoughts. They are unfocused. Over-emotional. You wish to control me, yet here you are … becoming me.”

“Shut up!”

As he flung his arms outward, the tendrils responded to his movements. They swung violently, unfurling to snap Adam into the air, but even then, it wasn’t remotely fazed. At the last second, it grabbed one of them and swung itself up and over the growth until both it and the appendage came to a stop: the tendril poised in the air and Adam standing on its toes on top of it. The alien held out its hands to calm the other tentacle, which paused and twisted lazily towards Adam.

In the next few seconds, Adam curled its hand towards Bill. The latter looked up, and in that brief second, his furious expression faltered. A spark of fear sent a tremble across his face.

And then, the tentacle shot at him. Faster than he had sent it at Adam.

“Do you think you can control me?” Adam asked.

Its hands twirled in the air, and the tentacle wrapped itself tightly around its host and yanked him into the air. As he dangled several feet in the air, Bill’s bones crunched, and Bill struggled to suppress a scream. Without shifting its expression in the slightest, Adam closed one of its hands into a fist, its fingers curling slowly into the palm. And in response, the tentacle closed tighter, Bill’s bones crunched louder, and Bill himself released a howl of pain into the tent. Adam knew it was painful; Bill’s attack was just as vicious, after all. It knew how it felt, how white-hot pain flooded every point of its body the moment its ribs fractured under its cracking arms. But the difference was that humans were so weak, so fragile. They couldn’t help but react to torture.

This was something Adam knew it would have to beat out of Bill eventually.

“To you, this is a dream,” it continued. “That is why you thought you could get away with being so audacious towards me. But you forget, Bill, how thoroughly I inhabit this body. My original body is intertwined with our neural network. It is easy for me to convince your brain that you have suffered any injury I inflict on you in this meeting place of ours. So I can make you feel pain.”

It opened its hand and squeezed it into a fist again. The scream it got out of Bill this time was a gurgling, strangled cry—as if one of his lungs was punctured.

“As much pain as I want you to feel, in fact,” Adam added nonchalantly. “So. Shall we reach an agreement? Will you perhaps give up your foolishness so that we may finally begin our work? Or shall I demonstrate once again that you do not control me?”

To its surprise, the tentacle released its host violently. Bill hovered where he had been hanging a moment ago as the appendage whirled around his body. He extended his arms and flung them towards Adam, prompting the tentacle to split into a mass of black tendrils that shot in unison at the parasite.

“Your tenacity is admirable,” Adam quipped as it held up a hand. When the tentacles slowed to a stop in front of it, Adam dropped its voice into a low growl. “But the simple truth is _I am stronger than you_.”

The tentacles shot back at Bill, and once again, he had no time to dodge. In a split second, each of the appendages twisted around each other to form a giant drill. And this drill shot straight through Bill’s chest and pinned him to the floor. There were no screams. Not even a yelp. Just the crash of the drill into the wooden floor and the dull thuds of Bill’s limbs striking the splintered floorboards. Floating over him, Adam peered down at its host, into the pale and trembling face of its host.

“Are you done?” it asked.

Bill neither moved nor spoke. Adam exhaled and lifted a hand. The drill pulled itself out of the floor and unwound, fanning its tendrils out behind Adam. As soon as the weapon was removed, the wound on Bill’s chest began to close.

“Get up,” Adam ordered.

He refused to stir. Adam took the opportunity to kick him—hard.

“Get up.”

Nothing.

Adam lifted a hand. “Very well. If this is what you choose to do, then so be it.”

It snapped its fingers, and one of the doors in the wall swung open to reveal perfect blackness beyond it. Swiftly, Adam trotted around Bill and partway down the steps. It didn’t get very far before a faint voice echoed from the doorway.

“Nii-chan!”

Bill flinched. His eyes widened as he listened to the voice. Raye’s voice.

“Nii-chan, wake up! Please wake up!”

“Raye,” he mumbled. With some effort, he turned his head towards Adam. “What are you …?”

“What am I doing?” Adam replied. “What do you think? Going outside. If you refuse to wake up, then I have no choice but to take over your body completely. I will merge our energy reservoirs. Drown you out. Obliterate your mind. Such a pity that everything will have to go to waste, but you are being far too uncooperative for me to manage.”

“And … and Raye …”

“Will she be protected?” Adam asked. It hesitated. “What happens to her is not any of my concern. But if you refuse to help her, she will undoubtedly die. Perhaps I should put her out of her misery. It would be far easier if I—”

A force slammed into Adam’s back and drove it into the wall. The attack was blunt and heavy, as if a sledgehammer into drove itself into Adam’s back. Then, the object moved, dragging the parasite like a rag doll up the wall and into the air. The tentacle flicked upwards, tossing Adam towards the ceiling before wrapping around it and clenching. At once, the familiar feeling of being crushed flooded its body, but the tentacle wasn’t applying enough pressure to do the job. At first, Adam thought that this wasn’t intentional, that Bill wasn’t strong enough to use the appendage to deal massive damage to it, but looking down at its host, the parasite could see that this was a different case entirely.

Bill was on his feet. But he wasn’t standing in an animalistic pose like he had during his first attack. His back was straight. His arms hung steadily at his sides with his hands balled into tight fists. His eyes were on Adam, and his face bore a sharp frown. But more than that, the look in his eyes wasn’t one of the wild anger Adam had seen a moment ago. It was a cold fury, a calculating one, an intelligent one. This wasn’t the look of a man who wanted to paint the walls with whatever was left of his enemies. This was the look of a man who would let one live for a little longer but chain them down and pull out their fingernails, who would drip acid into their eyeballs, who would take away everything they loved first just to watch them suffer. Bill looked like he was going to kill Adam, but that death was going to come as gradually and painfully as possible.

And if Adam could smile, it would right then out of pride.

“If you hurt her,” Bill began.

He waved a hand towards the other tentacle and gestured vaguely towards Adam. The tentacle responded by shooting towards the parasite and splitting into a thousand thin wires that all stopped within inches of Adam’s face. From that vantage point, Adam could see the glistening, razor-sharp edges of every single fiber.

“I will dissolve our contract and take this body for myself,” Bill finished.

Adam believed it. The creature believed every last word of it. Yet it couldn’t help but tilt its head slightly and comment.

“How do you know that I will not simply wrest control out of your hands and lock you away inside your head?”

The tentacles unwound, dropping Adam onto the floor with a thud. Quickly, they receded, snaking under Bill’s feet to form the floorboards once more. All the while, Bill continued to stare at Adam with the same furious expression.

“You know as well as I do that locks can’t hold me,” he replied. “Not if you’re threatening my sister. No matter what you do, I will break out, and _you will regret it_.”

“You also cannot kill me,” Adam responded calmly. “You know the consequences if you do.”

“Who said I would kill you?”

It was then that Adam stopped, and it was then that it studied Bill for a long while, not out of amusement but out of actual, sheer curiosity. There was something in the way the human carried himself now, something that wasn’t there before, something that went beyond even Adam’s understanding. Adam was mistaken. This wasn’t murderous rage, nor was it a vengeful wrath. Bill had no desire to kill him. But this was a calculated promise all the same, one that both fit Bill’s natural aversion to destruction and offered nothing but a creative Hell. No, Adam wouldn’t die. But Bill would make it wish it would.

And then, upon dwelling on why that was, Adam opened its eyes. It knew now what this meant and who the promise was really to. No, not Adam. Not specifically. It was a promise to anyone who hurt the people Bill cared about—that little girl especially.

“Love is a curious thing, is it not?” Adam quipped. “I was wrong about you.”

Bill turned and began walking to the open door. He had nothing to say.

“What will you do now?” Adam called after him.

Pausing at the threshold, Bill answered, “You know exactly what I’m doing.”

He looked over his shoulder, and it was then that Adam could see that he was … _smiling._ Actually smiling.

Adam was wrong about Bill, and it knew that now. It was very, very wrong.

“I’m waking up,” Bill said.


	14. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill gathers up the courage (to do something extraordinarily stupid).

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 1_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: DOSSIER_  
 _DESIGNATION: D.E.V.A. PERSONNEL CODEX ENTRY #000002-C_  
 _DESCRIPTION: D.E.V.A.—STRUCTURAL OVERVIEW, FUNCTION AND STRUCTURE OF ARC THREE_  
 _DATE-TIME: LAST EDIT, 07/01/83, 10:38_

_Arc Three, known by D.E.V.A. agents as the Field Team, are tasked primarily with the retrieval and control of objects as well as the defense and security of D.E.V.A. sites. In order to complete these goals, Arc Three works hand-in-hand with Arc Four (Reconnaissance Team), sometimes to the point where their duties will overlap. As such, Arcs Three and Four are expected to exercise a level of transparency between their departments, and it is not unusual for an Arc Three agent to be paired with an Arc Four operative for the duration of a mission. Besides the assistance offered by Arc Four, Arc Three agents also have D.E.V.A.’s full arsenal at their disposal, provided they obtain appropriate permissions before use. (See Form A3.408.)_

_Upon induction into Arc Three, agents are to be given the Employee Handbook, the comprehensive set of guidelines for handling object acquisitions, security breaches, crises, and general office situations. Arc Three agents are expected to refer to the handbook in all circumstances to avoid public attention and inadvertent object neutralization. Please note that all violations to the procedures outlined in the handbook may be punishable by immediate termination of employment within D.E.V.A. (See Memory Wipes—Acceptable Circumstances and Agent Neutralization.)_

_Because members of Arcs Three and Four are at a high risk of contacting civilians and other non-D.E.V.A. entities, identity security is considered top priority. While agents may be addressed by name over secure communication lines and within the D.E.V.A. Compound on Sekitan Island, agents on the field must carry the standard issue Employee Field Kit (See Employee Field Kit—Lethe Device) at all times and address one another by D.E.V.A.-appointed code names._

_Official Arc structure and code name guidelines are as follows:_

_**Director**_  
 _Current Member: Councilor Three, [REDACTED]_  
 _Director serves as liaison between Arc Three and the Committee. Responsible for overseeing all Arc Three operations. May be present for larger-scale situations._

_**Magnificent 22 (M-22)**_  
 _Notable Agents: Agent Zayin ([REDACTED]), Agent Yod ([REDACTED]), Agent Kaph ([REDACTED])_  
 _Highly trained agents chosen by Councilor Three for their skills and excellence in past operations. Considered a “last resort” for D.E.V.A.; called upon_ only _in high-risk operations (deemed as such either due to the risk of exposure_ or _the risk of worldwide catastrophe, including doomsday scenarios). See also: MAJESTIC 12._

_Task Force Alpha_  
 _Deals strictly with object containment/control and standard security procedures (e.g., guard duty, escort duty, other non-emergency situations). Agents within Task Force Alpha are assigned code names consisting of their agent title and any number from 23 to 499._

_Task Force Omega_  
 _Deals strictly with breaches, exposure situations, and situational control, including authorized object neutralization, civilian memory modification, and other emergency protocols. Agents within Task Force Omega are assigned code names consisting of their agent title and any number from 500 to 999. See also: D.E.V.A. Colloquialisms—The Cleanup Crew._

* * *

Bill awoke to a dark room and the feeling of warmth pressing against him. He groaned and shifted slightly. A dull ache radiated from points just behind his eyes, and his body felt stiff and heavy. Next to him, the warmth shifted and pressed itself uncomfortably against him, and craning his neck, he caught sight of Raye curled tightly against his side. She was fast asleep, her chest rising and falling rhythmically in deep, steady breaths. Carefully so as not to wake her, Bill wormed away from Raye, inching until he slipped to the edge of the bed. Once there, he sat up, placed his feet on the ground, and stood. His legs tingled but held his weight, much to his surprise and relief.

With the question of whether or not he was well enough to be back on his feet out of the way, Bill let his attention wander to his surroundings. He recognized it immediately from his days as a trainer: it was one of the recovery cubicles in the back of the pokémon center, just beside the operating rooms of the emergency center. Part of him felt uncomfortable, awkward in all the memories he had of places like these, of the sterile air and hard mattresses, of the curtains drawn up around each bed to afford every trainer and injured pokémon some remote sense of privacy. How many times had he been in cubicles like these, especially towards the end of his training career? How many hours did he spend, staring at his own pokémon and mulling over all the mistakes he made? How long did he spend thinking about how much of every injury was his fault? He was never put off by any other part of a pokémon center, but these cubicles always made him feel on edge, like a splinter of guilt was tugging at the rest of his mind.

So, before anything else, he had to get out. Glancing back at Raye, he took a deep breath and prepared to slip out as quietly as he could.

But instead, he stopped. Next to the bed stood a chair, and on the chair, there was a bundle of white with a card sitting on top. Even from across the cubicle, Bill could see the light, thin letters of Lanette’s handwriting spelling out his name on the surface of the card. Slipping along the edge of the bed, Bill quickly and quietly made his way around to the other side, where he swiped it from the top of the cloth bundle. It was Lanette’s handwriting all right, but the note she left on the other side was short and to the point.

_Bill—_  
Put these on as soon as you read this. If you wish to remain in town, you will cover up all of your mutations. The rest of your effects have been moved out of my cottage and into the house you have been assigned. Thom will escort you there at a convenient time. Do not attempt to leave the pokémon center until permitted to do so. We will know.  
—Fallarbor Town Hunting Corps 

“So much for progress,” he murmured, crumpling the card up with one hand.

Bill reached out to grasp the bundle. Dropping the crumpled card, he quickly tugged the first layer off the pile and shook it out. It wasn’t anything special—just a button-down, pale blue shirt—but to him, it was as if it was a Christmas miracle. He stared at it for a moment, taking in the sight of it, the lightness of it, the way it smelled like him, like his human self. It was just a cotton shirt, just a thing he brought to Hoenn and left there for the days when he would work with Lanette on the system, but right then, it was everything. Part of him found it a little ironic. He could remember the exact mindset he had when he left it in Hoenn, how _practical_ he thought it would be. He didn’t even think about it beyond the idea that it would make things easier. And now, here he was. Almost worshipping it, just because it was a tiny remnant of his human days.

He slipped it on and almost regretted it. A shudder ran down his back as he realized it felt _wrong_ now. The material felt odd against his skin—not necessarily painful or uncomfortable but … he couldn’t feel it. He could feel the light pressure of something against his armor, the same sensation one gets when wearing a coat for the first time after a long summer. But that was it. It was, he realized, discomfort in the knowledge that he was wearing clothing.

The other pieces of the bundle were all recognizable items to Bill. A pair of gray slacks. White socks. Black belt. Brown calf-high hiking boots. Brown faux suede gloves. Brown Ascot cap. As he slipped them on one by one—except the shoes and socks, which he promptly assumed were a joke on Lanette’s part—he turned that thought over: the thought that he never really stopped to consider his situation. He had no time, really. Between the breakout and the battle against the ixodida, he couldn’t possibly stop and think about what he was feeling at any given moment. And he certainly couldn’t have thought about how his body physically felt to him. That, at least, explained why he was hyper-conscious of all the sensations coming to him now: the feeling—or lack thereof—of clothing against his skin, the temperature of the air, the way his ears picked up the dull hum of the pokémon center’s generator in the distance, the hundreds of different scents his nose detected, and a thousand other different sensations. In this brief moment of peace, Bill had all the time in the world to realize just how inhuman his body was.

He was surprised that it scared him.

Wincing at the thought, Bill scrambled to find something else to fixate on. What was he going to do now? That seemed like a good topic to him right then. Now that he was essentially a prisoner of Fallarbor Town—or so he felt, what with Lanette’s treatment of him—his freedom to do whatever he pleased was severely limited. Then again, what was he going to do anyway? It occurred to him then that he had no idea what Hoenn was like at that point in time; he only knew the Hoenn that existed before the quarantine, not the one with deserted cities and an infestation of alien pokémon. And where would he start with the ixodida? He knew his goal: to bring peace between humans and ixodida. But how? Lanette wasn’t going to help him, and judging from his only encounter with wild ixodida so far, he wasn’t sure if they would readily accept the idea of peace. And even then, what would he do afterwards? If he succeeded in his goal, where would he go from there?

Could he go back to being a researcher?

He stopped, staring down at his outfit. His hands had been adjusting the cap to cover his horns for the past few minutes, but as soon as he became aware of that, they stopped, clinging to the edges of the hat as he glanced all the way down to the tip of his tail. Could he go back? He never thought about that until now. His tail twitched on the floor as that question tossed around in his mind and collided with the other, more sensible question of, “And just what precisely do I do with _this_?” Heaving a sigh, Bill pulled his shirt’s tails out of his pants and let his own snake up and under the cotton cloth. That was the oddest sensation of all: the feeling of standing as his balancer wound its way in tight coils around his waist. Instinct told him this would slow his movements and force him to concentrate on staying upright, but he preferred hiding it to finding out whether or not Lanette would seriously cut it off. All the while, the other question burned in his head.

Could he go back?

He thought of his lighthouse, his work, his pokémon. He wondered what they—the pokémon—were doing right then. Kadabra would probably be dusting, as he always did when his master traded in sleep for long nights in the laboratory. Venusaur would be sleeping in the garden. The eevee …

Bill swallowed and turned towards the curtains of the cubicle. The lump in his throat went down painfully, and that was the extent of his reaction to the realization that hit him hard.

He couldn’t go back. Not unless he could be human again.

If he succeeded, then his plan—as loose as it was at that point—would probably require him to remain in Hoenn among the ixodida. They would need him to act as their liaison between humanity and their species. If he failed, he would be dead, plain and simple. Either way, he knew everything would be different from that point forward.

Again, he stopped and checked his hands. Where were they now? Did he always have this habit of letting his hands wander? Perhaps he did. He never liked sitting still. But now? Now where they were was important. He needed to keep track of them now. They were weapons. They were their own creatures. At any moment, he could lose feeling in them, and who knows what Adam would do with them?

Bill shuddered. Everything _was_ going to be different from that point forward. New life. New species. New headmate. He wasn’t against change, but …

There. With a slow breath out, he found his hands. One rested at the small of his back, pressing his shirt against his coils of tail. The other was at his throat, fingers curling around his collar. He had almost forgotten about that: the collar permanently fixed around his neck.

Maybe prisoner of Fallarbor wasn’t the right term. Maybe pet of Fallarbor was. Or dog, perhaps.

How could Lanette think he was a threat when he had a collar and tag? Didn’t she see them? Didn’t she know what they meant?

His thumb brushed the insignia on the front, and his thoughts finally began to settle. The insignia. Polaris. He focused on those until something began to congeal in his mind. Sure, Bill _still_ didn’t have a specific plan for the ixodida, but he at least had a plan at all now. He needed to talk to someone outside of the region. Someone who would listen to him. Someone who could possibly send help. Professor Oak.

It felt good to actually make a decision. Bill reached for the curtains, casting one last glance towards his sister. He hesitated, opting to move quietly to her side. She was still asleep, still breathing steadily, still deep in a dream. Bill lifted a hand and glanced at it briefly. The black leather held tight; none of the harsh claws or sharpened plates cut through. Reassured of that, he gingerly reached down to brush his sister’s arm. Still, she didn’t stir. She looked so peaceful. And for that, for the first time in a long while, Bill felt himself smile—genuinely this time, not awkwardly like he had with Thom.

Knowing that, he pulled the sheets out from under Raye as carefully as he could to avoid waking her. They settled over her, covering her neatly from her chin downward. Bill thought of giving her a goodnight kiss. That was what family did in these situations, right? That was what their mother did, anyway. But their father …

Bill decided against the goodnight kiss after all. And with that, he moved swiftly out of the cubicle.

Beyond the curtain, the clinic was as he expected it to be: a large room full of rows upon rows of cubicles formed by identical curtains. Now and then, he would see a cart full of medical supplies, but beyond that, the room was rather unremarkable-looking. He walked with purpose down the wide center aisle between the rows of cubicles, ignoring the fact that all of them had their curtains drawn. Each one he passed smelled like a different pokémon, but he wrote it off right away as being a given. This was a pokémon infirmary. Of course it would smell like pokémon. He just tried his best not to think about it, opting to focus entirely on the door in front of him. He was thankful for the mild distraction, though, because the alternative was finally stirring in his head.

_This is not a natural state for our kind,_ Adam growled. _Bill, I do not like these garments. Take them off._

He walked on wordlessly. Only a few feet stood between him and the door to the lobby now. He could see the back of the front desk, the piles of papers Nurse Joy had left there.

_Did you hear me, Bill? I said take them off._

His arms started to go numb, and at that point, Bill clenched his fingers into fists and stopped short. He glared downward, at the cloth covering the jewel in his chest. Through its cotton, he could see the angry, red light of the parasite.

“I heard you,” he snapped. “And I think it’s rather audacious of you to be making demands of me. Didn’t you learn anything from our last conversation?”

_Just as you are not afraid of me, I am not afraid of you._

“You should be. There are a thousand things I can do to make our partnership unpleasant.”

_Likewise._

Bill huffed and looked to the side of the room. “It’s clear that we’re not going to get anywhere like this.”

_What do you propose to do about it?_

One of his hands fidgeted with the collar. “I’m proposing a truce.”

_A truce?_

“A deal.” Bill smirked. “Think of it as a contract.”

_A contract? With me? Now_ that _is interesting. Have you finally begun to trust me?_

“No,” he admitted, “but I can see getting along with you. Under the right circumstances.”

_And what might those circumstances be?_

Bill’s hand slipped to his side, and he walked forward to lean against the doorframe. “My cooperation. You’ve been telling me that I’m resisting being an ixodida, haven’t you? Well, apparently, you weren’t incorrect in that, and that is the first thing that’s going to change. I’m going to be more open to living as an ixodida, and I’m going to listen to your advice more often from now on.”

_That is quite a change in attitude from our last encounter. If I may ask, what brought this on?_

He hesitated, turning his chin a little so that his head faced the darkened lobby. All the while, he thought about everything. How wrong his clothes felt on his body. How his plan—once he had one—would require him to give up the idea of going home. How it would be unreasonable to assume that he could go back to his old life.

Needless to say, he didn’t have to say a word for Adam to understand.

_I see. I am sorry for your loss._

“I’m sure you are.”

_I mean that. Our hosts have to sacrifice a lot for our sakes, and it is very rare for us to grant them anything comparable to what they must lose. I think about that sometimes._

Bill crossed his arms. He was about to counter that with the fact that he knew for certain Adam didn’t, but he set his jaw and remained silent.

_Consider me interested. What are your terms?_

“I have two,” Bill answered. “First, I want you to help me. When I ask for answers, I expect straight ones, and if you don’t want me to kill us both, you’ll need to keep an eye on me. I’ve never gone feral while wearing a costume, but this is no costume. There is a very real risk I might forget myself.”

_There is not, but I understand your fear. I will do my best to help you. What is your second term?_

“I’m not going to kill anyone.”

The answer came quicker than Bill had expected.

_Agreed._

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not going to kill anyone either. No killing, period.”

_Bill._

“It’s not a negotiable term.”

_There will be circumstances—_

“I don’t care.”

_At least consider a rewording of this term if the situation in this region is worse than you assume. You do not know the degree of animosity between humanity and our kind yet._

Bill paused. He expected some level of resistance, but somehow … what Adam said now was reasonable to him. His entire body relaxed a little, and he exhaled a long sigh.

“Very well. I’ll consider rewording that term for cases of self-defense later. Until then, no killing. Understood?”

_Yes._

“Then do we have a deal?”

_Yes._

There was no hesitation on Adam’s part, but after that last word echoed through their shared head, there was hesitation on Bill’s. It couldn’t have been that easy. There should have been more resistance, more belittling. Just what was Adam planning?

_You can trust me, Bill. You have proven to me through our last encounter that you are worthy of being my host. I have never shared a body with a being who dared to be so defiant of his circumstances. I am impressed._

“Why would you be impressed with that?” Bill asked.

_You may find,_ Adam responded, _that tenacity will be a valuable trait when facing my kind._

Bill couldn’t help but smile. “Well. Good to see we were able to reach an agreement so quickly.”

_Indeed. Now. You have questions._

“Mm.” Bill slipped into the lobby and moved towards the bank of videophones. “You promised you would explain what you did to me if we survived all of yesterday.”

_I did not._

“Well, you can’t deny that it would have helped,” he replied. “If I knew what I could do—”

_All right._

Bill sat down at one of the videophones. It couldn’t be this easy.

_I cannot explain the full details of our transformation in the same way any ordinary human cannot explain the inner workings of their own bodies,_ Adam began. _I assume that you would be better equipped to understand, but you must realize that I am not a scientist._

“Fine,” Bill responded. “But what about my abilities? What can I do?”

_I could reply, but you would not understand without experiencing them for yourself._

“Adam.”

_That is the most straightforward answer I can give you,_ it said. _You know moves already. You call these techniques Bullet Punch and Protect. How did you learn them?_

Bill opened his mouth to reply, but then, slowly, he closed it again. He realized he _didn’t_ know how he learned them. They just came to him almost as naturally as walking did. At last, he uncrossed his arms and examined his hands again. What did that mean?

_It means,_ Adam said, _that you now understand how pokémon learn. There are some techniques you will need special training to master, yes, but for many of our natural abilities, they will simply come to you instinctually. I can tell you now that you will learn many techniques that are based in part on your knowledge of the two aforementioned moves, and if you are truly that desperate, you may be able to use the ones you call Scratch and Growl. You have also already experienced your enhanced senses and regenerative abilities. I am certain you will also be pleased to know that your skin is made of a metal unique to my planet and that this metal is lightweight but capable of resisting damage better than the metal skin of the pokémon of Earth. Your defensive abilities will rely on the composition of your skin in conjunction with how you channel your element. You have already sensed this in the move you call Protect, but there are others you may learn through this knowledge. Does that give you an idea of what you are capable of?_

“Not really,” Bill replied as he lowered his hands. “Just how quickly will I be able to unlock new moves? And which ones will I learn?”

_The answer to your first question is dependent on your learning speed,_ Adam replied, _but given the abilities you possessed before I found you, I have no doubt that you will unlock much of your arsenal quickly. As for the answer to your second question, which ones will depend on how you adapt to your body. Traditionally, members of the Iron Clan learn physical moves that rely on the sharpness of our claws and distance moves formed by channeling the energy we use in our physical attacks into the jewels in our hands. I would not suggest attempting distance moves until you have mastered your close-distance combat skills, as your energy-based attacks require an immense amount of skill and a full understanding of how to control our element. On that note, as I might have mentioned earlier, it is unusual that you have learned Bullet Punch before the more traditional Metal Claw or Iron Tail, hence why I cannot say which techniques you will learn first._

Bill chuckled to himself. “Are you saying I’m that special?”

_It is very rare that I find a host who adapts the way you do. It is fascinating to me, but it will ultimately have no effect on your overall battling capabilities. It simply says that you are more agile than other members of the Iron Clan, not that you are better._

With his gaze drifting to the ceiling, Bill crossed his arms. “That’s another thing. You keep using that term, ‘Iron Clan.’ What does that mean?”

_Simple. Our kind arranges itself into tribes—seventeen of them in all. We base them on our elements, as ixodida of like elements would naturally feel the most comfortable hunting together. The Iron Clan is the smallest of these tribes, but it is, in my opinion, the noblest. That is why I chose to be a part of it. We are what you would call steel-types._

“I gathered.” He raised an eyebrow. “Wait. What do you mean by ‘chosen’?”

Adam purred in his head. _Our organization is looser than you think, Bill. When each ixodida parasite is born, they are only what you would call bug-types. When we choose our hosts, we have the ability to modify our unified bodies any way we wish, and thus, we also choose our secondary elements._

“Ah. So you can choose your family.”

_We do not value blood bonds. The parasite that births us is simply another parasite, nothing more._

Bill clenched his teeth. He thought he could hear a slight tone of bitterness to that statement, but he chose not to press it any further.

_There is more that you must know,_ Adam continued. _I must tell you about drones and monarchs._

At that, Bill blinked. “Drones. Like the boy.”

_Right. Drones are simple creatures, but they are simple because they are faulty transformations. Parasites that did not complete the transition correctly, in other words. They were missing something._

“What were they missing?”

_I cannot say. But because of it, they are mindless and violent. The monarchs control them, but my kind has never been much of a benevolent species. When we left our home world, we were at war._

“With whom?”

_Each other. Who else? But it has left the monarchs just as violent as the drones. It is just that the monarchs are more intelligent about it. They are calculating, sadistic creatures. They will rarely engage in direct combat with anyone who is not a monarch; rather, they will send legions of drones from within their clan to fight their battles for them. The drones are the soldiers, and the monarchs, generals._

Bill bowed his head and rested his hands on the desk in front of him. “I see. Then how do we stop them?”

_Normally, I would say we must fight them, but you have made it clear that you would prefer a more peaceful resolution. Therefore, I do not know. I apologize._

“No, don’t apologize, I …” Bill placed one hand on the phone’s receiver and used the other to rub his eyes. “I guess I made this all rather complicated, didn’t I?”

_Earth is a very new experience for me. Since the moment I arrived, nothing has been quite so easy to predict._

Bill smiled grimly. “Yes. You’ve probably never had the pleasure of being captured and studied.”

_No. But for what it is worth, I am thankful to have you as a host. I doubt anyone else would have been stubborn enough to force me into rethinking my plans._

“What _were_ those plans, anyway?”

_I think you know._

He had a feeling he did. Adam was going to use whichever host it found to kill the monarchs. Brutal but straightforward. Or it would have been if Bill hadn’t insisted on letting them live.

But something nagged at Bill’s brain. Something about this whole situation didn’t make sense, but he couldn’t for the life of him put his finger on it. Consequently, all it did was leave a sharp frown on his face.

_Well?_ Adam said. _What else?_

“Sorry,” Bill replied. “You’ve answered all of my questions so far. Thank you.”

_Very well. Then what do you plan on doing?_

He lifted the receiver. “That’s easy. Call Professor Oak. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”

Bringing the receiver to his ear, Bill punched in the number for Professor Oak’s pokégear. It wasn’t necessarily one he used often, but it came naturally to him nonetheless—a pleasant memory of very human actions.

The pleasure he got from it only lasted a few seconds, however. In the next instant, a screeching series of tones flooded his ear. He howled and threw the receiver down, and both of his hands flew to his ears to fight off the rush of pain. What would have been a mild annoyance to his human self became an unbearable rush of confusion to his ixodida self, and he doubled over, unable to cope with the noise otherwise.

And then the noise ended with a soft click. Cautiously, Bill pulled his head out from under his arms to glance at the phone. The receiver was where it should have been: resting firmly in its carriage. A set of human fingers pressed it in, and slowly, Bill followed them—up a hand, up an arm, right to Lanette’s face.

“The phones here work,” she informed him, “but only within Fallarbor. We find that it’s easier to communicate with each other through the phone system, and there’s no point in connecting us to the rest of the world. Just in case you were wondering.”

Sitting up, Bill twisted around to face her. “Lanette. I … how long have you been here?”

“Long enough to hear most of your conversation with yourself,” Lanette replied dryly. “Your parasite’s name is Adam?”

Bill blanched. “I-I can explain. Y—”

She glared hard at him. “I’m not interested in your explanations. This is a simple yes or no question, Bill.”

At first, he couldn’t speak. He could only incline his head as his lips parted numbly. Although he knew from the note she had left him that they were by no means on friendly terms, he had hoped they had made some semblance of progress. But the way she glared at him, the way she stood with her arms tense and her back ramrod-straight, told him that he hadn’t begun to earn her trust.

“Yes,” he finally said. “His … his name is Adam.”

“Good,” Lanette responded with a nod. “Adam, I need to talk to you. I have information concerning Fallarbor’s plans.”

Bill would have sat in shock about this, but he didn’t have time. Before he knew what was happening, the feeling of being pulled backwards into his head overtook him, and he found himself watching his body from somewhere behind his eyes. Lanette raised her chin slightly, studying her companion’s expressionless face. And all the while, Bill could only stare at her from inside his head.

How could she?

How could she want to speak with an ixodida more than him?

She _hated_ ixodida.

So why …?

“Adam?” she asked.

“Act quickly,” the parasite answered. “I have a feeling that once my host regains his composure, you will not have much longer to speak with me.”

Lanette scoffed. “As expected. But can I trust you with this information?”

“My host will see to it that you can, I assure you.”

She narrowed her eyes into slits. “I don’t want to rely on him to keep you in check.”

_Lanette!_

Adam shifted its eyes away from Lanette. “Ah. There he is now. Hurry, child.”

_No, Adam, don’t you dare!_ Bill thought. _Ask her why she’s talking to you instead of—_

_Quiet now, Bill. Lanette requires my attention._

“All right,” Lanette continued. “But mark my words, Adam. If I have any reason to believe that you’ll deliver this information to the ixodida, I will kill you. Understood?”

Keeping its head inclined and its eyes fixed on the floor, Adam nodded. “I expect nothing less. Now go on. It seems Bill is rather jealous of the attention you are affording me.” It flicked its eyes back to Lanette. “He is rather fond of you, you know.”

_Adam! Let me out!_

The parasite could feel Bill’s mind pull at the edges of its own. In response, it curled its fingers and straightened its back as it kept its attention on Lanette.

“Good,” Lanette said. “We’re raiding the ixodida nest to the east of town. I assume you already know that it’s entirely a ground-type unit.”

Adam twitched. Its eyes trailed away from Lanette again as it built a mental wall between itself and Bill. “Is that so? Do you know for certain where the main chambers of the nest are? The Sun Clan burrows, Lanette. They are like your durant or diglett. Their nests can be vast and difficult to map, and unless you strike the heart of the structure where the majority of the ixodida hide, you will face absolute defeat.”

“We have scouts,” Lanette replied calmly. “They’ve located the entrances to the ixodida nest, and we plan on using all of our resources to flood them. Our forces are small, but between us, we have enough water pokémon to do the job. Just in case, we have backup grass-types and ice-types to strike any topside ixodida, and we plan on using our own ground and rock pokémon to trigger a tunnel collapse via Earthquake.”

_No! Adam, let me out!_

Inhaling deeply, Adam closed its eyes. “You seem confident in this strategy.”

“I’ve dealt with nest raids in the past.” Lanette smiled. “I led a hunting party to eradicate a nest of fire-types in Lavaridge. I can handle ground-types.”

“The Flame Clan? Impressive. They are far too proud to fall without a fight.” The parasite took another shuddering breath. “Bill’s attempts to surface are getting more and more desperate, Lanette. Tell me quickly. What is my role in this?”

“While I’ve never had the misfortune of dealing with a steel-type ixodida before,” she answered, “I’ve seen your defenses in action. You’d be valuable to us as a hunter and an advisor.”

“As tempting as that is,” Adam began, its body trembling now, “I am afraid that this would be up to my host. We had a deal, you s—”

Abruptly, the ixodida cried out. Lanette balled her hands into tighter fists as she watched with alarm. Her companion doubled over, his face snapping out of the blank, expressionless facade into one twisting in pain. He gripped the front of his shirt and panted until he could speak.

“No,” Bill said shakily. “Let me go. I’ve got to—”

His face blanked again, and Adam looked up at Lanette.

“As I was saying, Bill and I have unfortunately come to an agreement—”

Another cry. Bill gripped the edge of the desk at this point, pressing his forehead against it for a few seconds.

“Let go,” he growled. “Let go. Please. I need to talk to—”

Adam lifted their head. “At the risk of making light of this situation, it is rather impolite to interrupt, Bill.”

The creature’s head snapped with a vigorous shake, and another pained expression passed over its face. “I don’t care! Lanette, please! Listen to me! You can’t—”

Its face blanked once again. When Adam continued, its voice was strained, as if it was clearly using every bit of power it had to concentrate on something other than speaking. “Our agreement is a rather complicated matter, as you can see. As I have told you once, I cannot disclose the full details of the contracts Bill and I agree upon, but I am certain that, given the nature of my host, you would be able to deduce what—”

Another scream. “Lanette!”

Before Bill could continue, something hard and heavy collided with his skull and swept him off the booth’s stool. He went sprawling into the tiled floor as a stabbing pain blossomed across the side of his head. For a few seconds, he curled up on the floor, shuddering until the pain gradually subsided. Then, he looked up.

Lanette stood over him with her eyes wide and her pupils contracted to pinpoints. Her entire body stood straight and stiff, but the crowbar she held in both hands visibly shook. She didn’t move. She only stared down at Bill with her wide, frightened eyes.

Inside, Bill could feel Adam retreat, curling up in his head but not fully submerging. Instead, it sat where he had sat, right behind his eyes, watching Lanette intently. He, meanwhile, propped himself up on his elbows as his mind scrambled to make sense of what he was seeing.

“Lanette,” he said softly. “Why …?”

“Shut up,” she hissed. “Don’t make me watch you. Don’t you dare make me watch you.” Her voice grew higher and higher pitched with each word until it ended with a quiet screech.

“I … I don’t understand,” Bill murmured. “Lanette, what is it? Are you … you do know that it’s me, right?”

“Shut up!” she screamed.

“Lanette …”

With some effort, Bill forced himself to his feet. Lanette shuffled backwards, keeping her crowbar in front of her like a sword. Focusing on her face instead of her weapon, Bill stepped forward and reached out to her with one hand.

“Stay … stay back!” she barked.

“Lanette,” Bill said. “It’s me. It’s just me, okay? You don’t have to be afraid.”

She swung at him. The crowbar struck him in his side, resulting in the dull thump of iron against cloth and steel. Bill winced but quickly used the strike to his advantage by hooking his arm around the crowbar and pulling himself closer. Before Lanette could move out of his reach, Bill swept his free arm around her and pulled her tight against him. His other arm let go of hers and hooked around her waist, and he rested his chin on her shoulder. Normally, Bill wasn’t particularly fond of displays of affection like these, but it did the trick. Lanette dropped her crowbar and hung limply in his arms, her hands shakily gripping his shoulders.

“You don’t get it,” she whimpered. “You don’t get it.”

“Shh.” He shut his eyes and pressed his cheek into her shoulder. “Listen. I’m going to fix this. I swear. Just … don’t go through with your plan, all right? I need to speak with the monarchs in that nest. If I can convince them to stand down, then I can ask them for their help. They can protect us, Lanette. They can help us find the other nests so I can talk to their monarchs too. We don’t have to fight. We can talk things out.”

“You don’t understand,” Lanette said. Her voice was breaking, and already, Bill could feel the warmth of her first tears trickling onto his face.

“They’re just like me, Lanette,” he told her, holding her a little closer. “They’re people stuck inside too, and they’re pokémon, just like wurmple or sandshrew. Don’t you see? They don’t have to be violent. We just need to figure out what it is they want.”

Lanette hiccuped and shook her head. “You can’t. The empress … you don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll learn.” He pulled himself away but placed his hands on her shoulders. With a broad smile, he continued, “Everything’s going to be fine. You just have to trust me on this, all right? Please?”

He examined her face. She was crying. Visibly crying. On the one hand, it was a welcome break from the icy glares she had been giving him since he had arrived in Fallarbor. On the other … he couldn’t imagine why she was crying. Before he could study her face at length, she turned away, stooped to pick up her crowbar, and sheathed it again. Bill could hear Lanette take a few steady breaths, just enough to calm herself down to a point where she could speak.

“I’ve compiled data on the ixodida,” she said. “You may see it once we return. In the meantime, Adam—”

“Lanette, please,” Bill replied. “Speak to me, not him.”

“Adam,” she responded firmly. “Do not leave this building until morning. We’ll collect you at dawn and move out. Understood?”

“Lanette, please! Don’t go through with this! Whatever’s happening here in Hoenn, you’re not going to end it by—”

“Good night, Bill.”

And with those firm words, Lanette strode forward until she walked through the open door of the center. Bill stared after her, stunned by her behavior until he felt Adam’s presence curl around his brain.

_What will you do now?_ it asked.

Bill clenched his teeth and started for the clinic again.

“I’ve got to warn the ixodida before she kills them all,” he said.

* * *

Raye’s eyes slid open. Already, her dream—black and suffocating and full of people made of smoke—was fading, giving way to the sound of fabric rustling somewhere in front of her.

“Nii-chan?” she murmured.

“Raye?” Bill answered in surprise. “Go back to sleep.”

She sat up and squinted. Through the darkness, she could just barely make out her brother’s form rummaging through a medical cart beside the bed. He took an object shaped like a potion and shoved into a bag—a bag whose silhouette looked like one of the ones that Raye had seen more than once in the center’s lost and found.

“Nii-chan, where are you going?” she asked.

He stopped. Exhaling, he turned to her, pulling himself onto the bed as he pressed his hand against the back of her head. She felt the leather of his glove as she leaned forward under his touch. They sat in silence, foreheads pressed together for a long moment.

“I have to go for a while,” Bill told her.

“Why?” she said.

“Lanette is going to do something very, very bad,” he explained. “I need to go fix things before she does. But don’t worry. I’ll be back tonight. I promise.”

“No!” Raye lashed out, grabbing his arm and digging her fingers into the fabric of his shirt sleeve. “Don’t go!”

“Hey! Hey!” he cooed with an awkward, startled smile. “What’s all this about?”

She shook her head and pressed her face into his chest. “Don’t go down there! Everyone’ll get mad at you if you do! And—and … the holes … Abby showed me! The holes …!”

“Shh. It’s okay, Raye. It’s okay,” he said lightly as he wrapped his arms around her in a loose embrace. “The ixodida are nothing to worry about. I’m going to talk to them and convince them that we can be friends. Besides, if they try to hurt me, I’ve got powers, remember? I learned a new attack too. It lets me move faster than other ixodida. I’ll show you when I get back, okay?”

Raye sniffled and pulled away. “But Lanette ...”

Bill’s smile faded a little. “Hah. Let me worry about her.” He moved his hands to her shoulder and leaned close. “Now, Raye. Do me a big favor. Stay here where it’s safe, okay? I swear, I won’t take long.”

“You’re not coming back,” she told him.

“Hey! No! Don’t think like that!” He hooked his finger and pressed it against the underside of her chin until he could look her in the eyes. “I’ll be back. Tell you what. Just to convince you, I’ll swear on Ho-oh’s wings.” Leaning back, he pulled his hand away and curled each finger except for his smallest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Raye drew her shoulders up. “Burn you up ‘til your bones are dry?”

“Exactly.” Bill smirked. “I’ll come back.”

With some hesitation, Raye curled her littlest finger around her brother’s. He swept her into his arms for one last quick embrace, one that she didn’t return. Then, she couldn’t feel him anymore. She could only hear him: the rustling of the curtains, the heaviness of his footfalls, the fading away of his presence down the hallway beyond the cubicles. It was only when she could no longer hear his footsteps that she reached for the bedside table. Her fingers clasped one of the poké balls on its top—a poké ball that looked different from the others. Her thumb brushed over the copper etchings on its metallic surface, tracing the lace and stylized beautifly on one of its hemispheres.

“You said that the last time too,” she murmured.

* * *

Frankly, Domino was pissed, and In her opinion, she had every right to be. The ginger witch, as she liked to refer to the woman she met in the pokémon center’s basement, stole everything from her while she was out. Tulip darts, baton, smoke balls—even the pokémon she lifted from the center. The only things that she hadn’t stolen were Domino’s communication equipment, and _those_ were about as useful right then as a team of blind magikarp. As she stood in the shadowy safety of an alleyway, she examined the screen of her cell phone. Specifically, she squinted at the blank spot in its upper right-hand corner where the bars would have normally been. No reception. No wonder Domino couldn’t place any calls in the pokémon center’s basement.

Snapping the phone shut, Domino growled and jerked her arm, preparing to throw the device at the brick wall in front of her. But she didn’t. At the last moment, she stopped and hesitated, then pulled it back and shoved it under her hat. When her hand withdrew, it pulled free the other device, the sleek, black miniature computer Professor Nettle had given her for her mission. The app to track Codename Adam was still open, its map zoomed in all the way to Fallarbor’s street layout. Smack in its center, the red dot, the one that represented her quarry, was heading quickly towards the eastern edge of town.

Domino gritted her teeth. If he left town, he was as good as gone. How could she possibly take him down without weapons? McKenzie was too smart to be tricked. Easy to manipulate emotionally, sure, but Domino didn’t have the right leverage to do it. And anyway, emotional manipulation risked bringing something _else_ to the surface.

She shuddered. The memory of the creature’s cold glare still chilled her to the core. Domino remembered the way it looked at her—coldly, as if she meant nothing. She remembered the way a golden aura erupted around it. She could picture oh-so clearly in her mind the way its fingers seized the wall in front of it and the way the balls of light in its palms exploded in fantastic brilliance. The creature was fierce. Unstoppable. It cut through Zager’s technology, Zager’s supposedly _infallible_ technology, so easily.

And then, she remembered how it stood over her. Silent and expressionless, yet … cold. Very, very cold. She had knelt at its feet—unintentionally due to the force of the blast. She didn’t even realize she had done so, but there she was, looking up at its blank face. And then, after it stared at her for several of the longest seconds Domino could recall, it had leaned down to murmur something in her ear.

Domino didn’t think she would ever forget what it had told her that day.

“Only the weak bow to an enemy.”

This was the first time Domino remembered panicking on a mission. There was a reason for that. Panic leads to clouded judgment. Clouded judgment leads to hasty decisions. And hasty decisions make for hazy memories and a vague sense that something went horribly wrong. 

Here is what Domino remembered. She had screamed. She had thrown one of her tulips at the creature, and it must have hit because she recalled that there had been light. Brilliant light. Light from hundreds of volts of electricity coursing through the air into her target. But at the same time, she remembered seeing it standing there, as if nothing had happened. There must have been a time gap somewhere, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember where it was—or whether or not her attack was real. What she did remember was the sight of the creature blowing a hole through the airship’s hull somehow. It had stumbled out after that, dropping into the atmosphere like a gold-glowing lead brick. Had it been hurt? Was that why it didn’t try to blow up the trap she set up in the pokémon center’s basement? She wondered about that. The cube was set at a stronger frequency that time, sure, but it was as if the creature hadn’t even tried to escape. It was just bizarre to Domino. All of it was bizarre.

Scary even.

Because that thing could think, and if it could think, then …

She shook her head. No. She didn’t know what was going on in that thing’s head, and she didn’t care. All she knew was that she had let it get away, and because of that, her status as one of Team Rocket’s top agents was in jeopardy. And now? Now, her chances of rectifying that were literally running out of the city.

She scowled straight ahead at the brick wall on the other side of the alley. This was all McKenzie’s fault. If he hadn’t been stupid enough to run out with Joel Anderson, then only one ixodida would have been created, and none of this would have happened. She repeated that to herself mentally. This was all McKenzie’s fault, and the thought of him paying for it became a comfort.

Domino pulled herself away from the wall she leaned against and stalked out of the alley. She didn’t get much further than that, however. Out in the open of Fallarbor’s main drag, the flash of something orange caught her eye. Several yards in front of Domino, half-turned and looking away from her, was the ginger witch herself. Her red hair caught the moonlight as it settled around her, and that was what Domino had seen. The witch must have been startled by something, but the Rocket, already smiling, didn’t care. All this distraction meant was that Domino could jump the witch and get her arsenal back.

What Domino did instead was take two more steps into the open and freeze. Her eyes met those of the creature that had caught the witch’s attention: a white, dog-like thing several blocks ahead of her. The absol’s ruby-red eyes stared them both down until, at last, it turned and bounded away.

To the east, Domino realized. The creature was heading _east_.

This must have meant something to the witch because she turned and cast a look of fury to the sky. Domino swiftly retreated back into the alley but kept her eyes on the witch in fascination. The woman wrenched a phone from a pouch on her belt and rapidly keyed a number into it. Bringing it to her ear, she only waited seconds before she spoke.

“Officer Jenny, wake Nurse Joy and Thom Wattson. Have Joy check the clinic for Bill and send Wattson to keep an eye on Raye. Then gather the hunting party and prepare to move out within the hour.” She looked to the east. “Raye’s absol is out. This likely means Bill escaped, and if that’s the case, then I have no doubt he’s about to screw us all over.”

She waited for another second. After that second, she pulled the phone away from her ear and jammed her thumb into the call end button. Her free hand reached up to draw her crowbar, and as it sang against the sheath on her back, she turned completely to the east.

“That idiot,” she growled.

Domino took her eyes off the witch and smirked. She honestly couldn’t blame her. Still, this put a rather nasty dampener on her plans to retrieve her tools, but on the other hand, knowing that they had a common irritant allowed an idea to take root in her mind. She leaned against the alley wall again and closed her eyes to piece together a plan.

But then, seconds later, she snapped them open again as a chill ran down her spine. Shuddering, she suppressed the mental image of Codename Adam’s eyes and peered around the corner, back into the main drag. Empty. Looking around the alley, she noted that all she could see were shadows and darkened windows. Empty too. There was no one there. Not the witch. Not the people of Fallarbor. No one.

So why did she feel like she was being watched?

* * *

In laboratory G, John’s phone rang. He fixed his jaw, steeling himself as he watched Codename Abel electrocute another gardevoir. Part of him wished it was Adam beyond the window and not the electric-type. At least Adam would have been easier to reason with.

But Codename Adam came with its own problems, and that, John knew, was why he was being called on what was supposed to be a secure phone line.

At last, he drew the phone from his lab coat’s pocket and brought it to his ear.

“Give me good news,” he said gruffly.

“Councilor One? This is Agent Kaph reporting on behalf of Three,” a woman’s voice stated. “We’ve got good news from the field.”

“Good news?”

“It’s about Codename Adam, sir.”

“Oh.” John rubbed his eyes. “Trying news, then. Fine. Go on. What’s the boy gotten into now?”

“Four’s forces have been tracking him. Apparently, he’s in Fallarbor.”

“We know that, and we didn’t even need the tracking device to do it. Of course he’d be in Fallarbor. He’s fond of a girl there. Doesn’t fancy her, of course, because God forbid I’ll ever get grandchildren who’ll carry on my family name. Pardon me for saying that.”

“Yeah, well, fancy or not—” She practically spat those few words. “—he’s almost to the edge of town. He’ll be crossing paths with an active ixodida nest in approximately thirty-four minutes.”

John frowned. The boy always found a way to make things complicated. “Which of the reserve forces is closest to his location?”

“Thomas Wattson, sir. He’s already made contact with Adam.”

“Wonderful. Send him out.”

“Already gave him a standby order, per Three’s instructions, sir.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

“Because Wattson called _me_. Our friend from Team Rocket’s been spotted in Fallarbor too.”

“The Tulip.”

“Yes, sir. And that falls squarely within Three’s jurisdiction, as opposed to Four’s. Permission to initiate the trigger clause of the Yeled Protocol?”

John pursed his lips. The Black Tulip. The woman responsible for half this mess. John clenched his teeth and straightened his back. He swallowed his rage slowly.

“Sir?” C asked.

“No,” he said. “Leave her be.”

“But sir!”

“We need her to recapture Adam. Then we can extract him safely from the region … or deal with him on the field. Depends on what he’s trying to do. I’m sure it’ll be interesting to find out, wouldn’t it, Agent Kaph?”

“Sir, do you think that’s wise?”

“Why not?” John asked. “We could use the help.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. Is it wise to expose our entire operation to a civilian?”

“What, Bill? Hah.” John smiled toothily into the phone. “’S about time he learned about the _real_ family trade, isn’t it, love?”

“Hm.” Agent Kaph’s professional tone quickly dissolved into an annoyed purr. “And here I was hoping he’d have a quiet life. Comparatively speaking, anyway. This isn’t affecting my inheritance, is it?”

“No, but that cheek might.” John inclined his head as his eyes fell on something in the window. His smile faltered until it dipped into a frown, and when it did, he added, “Keep an eye on him, Kaph. D.E.V.A. needs him in one piece.”

“Understood, sir. Over and out.” And then, she was gone.

With that, John hung up and pocketed his phone. He stared straight at the window—or, rather, at the reflection in it. Through that and the brilliant flash of Abel’s Thunderbolt, John could clearly see Professor Oak standing behind him.

“Professor McKenzie,” he said calmly, “mind telling me what’s going on here?”

John flashed Oak a wide grin, and without skipping a beat, he replied, “Certainly, Sam. But I’m gonna need your help in return.”


	15. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill is not a politician.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 9_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT_  
 _DESIGNATION: THE ADAM INCIDENT, FILE 013_  
 _DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING—CONVERSATION BETWEEN C-01 AND PROFESSOR SAMUEL OAK_  
 _DATE-TIME: RECORDING DATE, 17/10/01, 14:21_

_C-01  
I hope you don’t mind that I record this meeting. We keep everything on record for security’s sake._

_OAK  
We? What’s going on, John?_

_C-01  
In short? I’m the director of D.E.V.A., a top-secret organization dedicated to the containment, research, or elimination of anomalies on the planet Earth. We also deal with interplanetary politics, and believe me when I say there are plenty of people out there in the universe who are wonderfully chuffed over the fact that the ixodida are here._

_OAK  
John, you’ve said some fascinating things in the time that we’ve known each other, but—_

_C-01  
Yes, yes. You’re skeptical. I understand. But I also want you to see this._

_[PAUSE IN CONVERSATION. THERE IS A WHIRRING NOISE IN THE BACKGROUND.]_

_OAK  
What is that?_

_C-01  
Emblem of the Intergalactic Association. Peaceful union of planets in our galaxy. They were hoping Earth would join them once we showed enough capability for it. D.E.V.A. was even preparing to hammer out the terms. Then the parasites showed up._

_[PAUSE IN CONVERSATION.]_

_OAK  
Let’s say I believe you. Why are you here, then?_

_C-01  
Who do you think’s running Project Stardust?_

_OAK  
I see. But then … I still don’t completely understand, John. Help me out here. If you’re working with aliens who already know about the ixodida, wouldn’t you know about them too?_

_C-01  
That’s the funny thing. No one in the IA has much on the ixodida. They just showed up one day on a planet, shortly before that planet exploded._

_OAK  
Exploded?_

_C-01  
Oh yes. Avani, to be specific. Or, well, it was a moon of a gas giant. The gas giant was the one that blew up. No one knows how, except the people on Avani. They were a technologically advanced race, eons more advanced than any other race in the IA. Some of the accidental refugees who were off-surface at the time of the pandemic theorize the rest of ‘em detonated their gas giant to avoid letting the parasites escape beyond the confines of their little moon. Problem was that the infected managed to activate the people’s interstellar travel system and used it to fling pieces of the moon to non-IA planets across the galaxy. All of the pieces contained hundreds of ixodida parasites, and long story short, one of the chunks of Avani fell to Earth. We have reason to believe it was the chunk the ixodida’s main nest stood on._

_OAK  
I see. Then you’re trying to get rid of the ixodida._

_C-01  
Heavens no! My son’s one of them, Sam! Come on!_

_OAK  
Then what is it that D.E.V.A. wants? How can I help?_

_C-01  
Aye, that’s the right question to ask. Not all ixodida were hostile, Sam. They were split into two factions, one that wanted to side with the Relians—you know, the people of Avani—and the IA, and then the other wanted to go out and conquer half the galaxy. Cliché, I know, but I’m not an alien. We’re not sure which side the ones on Earth were on. We think they might’ve been the ones who wanted to conquer the galaxy, but we need time to study them and figure out if that’s true. If it is, then yes, the IA wants us to get rid of them, which means we’ll need to figure out how to do it. The ixodida, as you can guess, must be tough little bastards if they survived whatever assault the most technologically advanced society in the galaxy threw at ‘em, and I’m sure you’d prefer it too if we didn’t resort to blowing up the sun to make sure they’re dead._

_OAK  
What if they were the ones that sided with the IA?_

_C-01  
Then I’m gonna have to have a stern talk with our IA representatives about how their allies eradicated half of one of our regions._

_OAK  
Well. Seems like you’ve got a lot of work cut out for you._

_C-01  
It’d be a lot easier with Polaris cooperating with us, Sam. We’ll make it worth your while. I know who the Team Rocket moles are. We can keep them in check and out of your way._

_OAK  
You don’t have to do that._

_C-01  
Technically, I do. But I would if I didn’t have to. I respect you too much to have your work compromised by the likes of them._

_OAK  
Speaking of respect, John. May I ask you a question?_

_C-01  
Shoot._

_OAK  
How long have you been working for D.E.V.A.?_

_C-01  
Over twenty years._

_OAK  
So, in all the time you’ve been …?_

_C-01  
Yeah._

_OAK  
Why didn’t you tell me?_

_C-01  
I did. Had to wipe your memory afterwards. Just like I will once we’re done here._

_OAK  
Wipe my memory?_

_C-01  
We’re a top-secret organization for a reason. Nothing personal. It’s to protect you. You really don’t want to go deep down the metaphorical rabbit hole, Sam. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I thank you kindly for the cooperation. Now, if there aren’t any other questions …_

_[END RECORDING.]_

* * *

Bill was many things, but he liked to think stupid wasn’t one of them. As he moved quickly through the tunnel beneath the pokémon center, his symbiont was quiet, and he knew exactly why. He would have known without his level of intellect; it was pretty obvious, in his opinion. That and it was rather frustrating to him that Adam refused to come out and say it. But Bill thought about it, and after at least half an hour of struggling to draft a message of peace in his head, he knew he had to say something.

So with a sigh, he stopped, still hunched in the low tunnel, and shot an annoyed glare at the earthen ceiling.

“Okay,” he said. “Let me summarize what you’re thinking right now. You think this is a terrible idea. You believe I’m going into this with gross misunderstandings about how your species operates. But you’re letting me do it anyway because you think you can trick me into giving you permission to kill, and no, you’re not going to tell me why Lanette is so comfortable speaking to you. How did I do?”

_Rather well, actually, except for the part concerning seeking your permission to kill._

Bill scoffed and pressed onward. “Adam, don’t underestimate me. I know that’s what you want.”

_You still refuse to trust me._

“Of course I’m refusing to trust you. With how many times you’ve lied to me—”

_When?_ Adam’s voice had an irritated edge to it, just enough to make its host jump. _I have never lied to you. It is you who has been asking the wrong questions. You humans. You_ earthlings _. Do you realize that this concept of fabrication exists only on Earth? It is true. I have known many planets and many races, and none lie as you define it._

“But you do lie,” Bill muttered.

_We simply do not tell truths that are not necessary at any given time. Humans, in their incredible moral simplicity, would call this lying, but that is not so. It is merely a different form of the truth. I cannot answer questions you do not ask, and you must not be distracted by knowledge that would serve you no purpose. That is all._

Bill exhaled and dug his fingers into the tunnel. It was the only form of navigation he had right then; the tunnel was far too dark, too devoid of light, for his night vision to work. He was kicking himself mentally right then. He had brought and prepared for every other situation. The bag at his side contained every strong medication he could find: full heals, hyper potions, max elixirs … everything but a flashlight. And right then, in the complete darkness of the tunnel—the tunnel he _knew_ he was going to take—even the tiniest particle of light would have been a blessing for his eyes.

He knew, of course, that he could have produced light himself. The idea of continuously using Bullet Punch to not only light the pathway sufficiently but also propel himself to his destination seemed almost irresistible, but Bill knew he needed to conserve as much of his energy as possible, just in case things didn’t go as well as he hoped they would. And opening his shirt to let his parasite light the way for him resulted in Adam dimming its internal glow, as if it had known what he was doing and decided to counter him out of pure spite.

It certainly didn’t help that the place was hot. A hot wind blew from somewhere up ahead, and the further down the tunnel he went, the hotter the walls and floor became. It wasn’t yet unbearable, but Bill could still feel the heat through his clothes, through the black gloves and dark brown hat he wore. The journey itself was uncomfortable, and between that, knowing his powers were useless, and realizing the knowledge he had about this nest was limited, he wasn’t in the mood for banter.

_We could bicker all night in this tunnel,_ Adam continued, _but it would do us no good. The truth of the matter is that I am concerned about you._

The host released the wall and continued forward. “Is that so?”

_Of course it is. You are my host. It is natural for me to be concerned about you on a level._

Bill shrugged. At that point, he wasn’t even bothered by any implication that Adam’s concern was anything but self-serving. He just assumed that it was part of the ixodida’s way of life.

“All right,” he said. “Why are you concerned, then?”

_Because it is true that you do not understand my kind. There are politics involved. Eons of politics involved that dictate the actions of each monarch, including the one that surely exists in the nest that you are approaching._

“And are these politics necessary for me to know?”

_Yes. Absolutely. They are vital._

“Then tell me quickly.”

_I cannot. I do not have time. You should have waited._

“Too late,” Bill said. “We’re going forward, and I’ll just have to do my best based on what I know.”

_You can go back._

Bill squinted, half-ignoring Adam’s suggestion. There was a pinprick of red light up ahead, hovering low, but at that moment, Bill couldn’t tell whether it was his imagination or a tangible point of the tunnel. All he knew was that the temperature was beginning to climb out of a mildly uncomfortable state and into a less agreeable range. The earth felt like it was steaming under his hand, and in response, he moved his fingers until each gloved tip scraped against the tunnel wall. Underneath his bare feet, the tunnel began to slope.

Forward. Despite the heat, despite the discomfort he felt, he had to go forward.

“I can’t go back, and I can’t wait,” he said. “Lanette and the rest of the hunting party is heading out in the morning, Adam. If I don’t talk to the ixodida now, they’ll be wiped out.”

_Have you ever thought that perhaps it would be for the best?_

“Not you too.”

_You should listen to reason, Bill._

“I am! It’s you who’s mad!” He scowled and lowered his voice. “You and Lanette.”

_Still bitter?_

“We’ll talk about that later.”

The tunnel was most definitely getting hotter at that point, and Bill was thankful for the reprieve from the conversation, however brief it was going to be. It gave him time to think, particularly under his growing irritation. What was he going to say? How would he introduce himself? Networking was not a foreign concept to him—not when he had done it so many times to garner funding for his inventions and projects—but politics and diplomacy had little to do with the conversations he had with potential benefactors. This was a war, and he was no politician.

Yet he wasn’t nervous. He wouldn’t let himself be nervous.

_Bill._

He flinched. “Unless you have something that doesn’t involve talking me into going back or berating me for jumping into this without thinking things through, I don’t want to hear it, Adam.”

_Actually, I was going to propose that we work together._

At that, Bill stopped. Days ago, he might have thought of that as a relief, but now, it was so shocking of a statement from his partner that he needed a moment to process that it had, in fact, been said.

“What,” he said, less as a question and more as an impulse.

_Do not be so surprised that I am suggesting this,_ Adam answered. _Why should I not propose it? It is clear that you are not to be swayed, and so long as I share this body with you, what you do with it is my business just as much as yours. It is only natural that I would be interested in seeing to it that you are successful in whatever endeavor you undertake._

“That … oddly makes sense,” Bill said slowly. “All right. Under one condition.”

_That you be given full control over this body and the ability to veto any suggestion I make? Naturally. I have no interest in speaking directly to the monarchs._

Bill stiffened. “Why is that?”

_Most of them are idiots._

“Oh.” He relaxed, exhaling slightly. “Well. Good to know that it’s for a fairly predictable reason, given … you. All right. Then I’ll talk for us. How are you going to help?”

_Simple. I will tell you what to say._

Bill continued down the tunnel. In response to the intense heat, he picked up his pace, stepping quickly and lightly across the earthen path to avoid keeping any part of him on the hot dirt for too long. All the while, he focused on the red dot and tried to turn Adam’s words over in his head.

“You?” he asked. “Adam, I don’t mean to be offensive, but how? I’m looking to create peace between the ixodida and humankind.”

_And if you say exactly what I tell you to say, you will likely be one step closer to achieving that._

“I don’t like that ‘likely,’” Bill muttered. “In any case, weren’t you a soldier?”

_No. What makes you think that?_

“You said your planet was at war and that the ixodida are a war-faring people.”

_Ah. Yes, that all is true. But just as not all humans are soldiers when your planet is at war, not all of my kind fought. For your information, I was an ambassador._

Bill furrowed his eyebrows. “An ambassador?”

_Of sorts._

He nodded incredulously. “Oh. Of sorts.”

_Yes. A spokesperson for a rebel faction, more accurately. But not an active fighter, no. I was far more interested in strategy and politics._

“Ah.”

Bill continued on in silence. It was odd, in his opinion. He had never given much thought about Adam’s past until now. It had never occurred to him that the parasite had infected other sentient beings and lived other lives outside of him. To Bill, the parasite itself was a pokémon, much like spinarak or shedinja, a creature that wasn’t sapient until it became fused with his body. And that in itself startled Bill. The contrary should have been the _first_ thing he thought. He should have recognized right away that Adam was an independent being just as intelligent and innovative as he was—a soul with its own collection of thoughts and memories and skills. Yet … he didn’t realize that. As a researcher, didn’t it occur to him that this thing inside him had a past life far beyond the reaches of human comprehension? Didn’t the possibilities of distant planets and fantastic creatures pique his curiosity? How did he miss those questions?

Of course, there was an obvious answer in that he was just too busy to notice, but more importantly … asking those questions would mean acknowledging that Adam was _intelligent_. And it knew all of their shared abilities better than Bill did. There was a whole being, a second mind, inside him, and he had no idea just how powerful it was or what it was capable of doing to him.

That scared him a little.

And Bill knew that Adam could most likely tell he was scared right then, but it made no effort to show that. It merely continued as if there wasn’t a shred of fear lurking in Bill’s mind.

_The situation on our planet was not what you would call ideal,_ Adam said. _The people were controlled by a powerful entity known as the empress. I have no doubt the ones here are as well; every colony has its own. But all you must know is that the empress of our planet forced my kind to do her bidding. Our needs were never her concern. We were her puppets, her playthings, her dolls. All of us except those who broke free. We became what you would call the rogues. We called ourselves the Gray Rebellion._

“The Gray Rebellion,” Bill repeated vaguely. “That ...”

_Sounds impressive? We certainly were. We were the scourge of the empress, freedom fighters in a great war. We were going to free our people, Bill. But we could not. We failed._

Bill kept his eyes steady on the red glow, barely registering that it was almost large enough to fill the end of the hall now. His night vision was finally kicking in, and he began to make out details of the pathway around him.

It took him a moment to respond at last to Adam’s explanation. “How?”

_I cannot say. You are about to approach the end of the tunnel, and my story would take far too long to tell. All I can divulge right now is that although we rogues were all monarchs, not all monarchs stood with us. Most monarchs were—and perhaps still are—loyal to our home planet’s empress. Make any indication that you are not, and they_ will _eradicate you. Understand?_

“Yes,” Bill replied quietly.

_Good. Now listen carefully. As soon as we get to the nest—_

Adam stopped, and the abruptness of its silence broke Bill out of his daze. That and right then, they came to the end of the corridor. Bill was just about to ask Adam why it had stopped speaking, but the chamber beyond it caught his eye.

It was a vast place, far bigger than any cave or even building Bill had set foot in. The walls were cylindrical, almost like a sea sponge made of rock, and along its circumference were dozens upon dozens of roadways with carved, cobblestone-like surfaces. Each one of the paths supported scatterings of ixodida: some that appeared to be bodybuilders made of exaggerated, purple muscles, others that were covered in dirty-brown spikes, handfuls with gray-stone skins … all entering and exiting doorways all along the walls.

Bill was expecting the other openings to be crude-looking cave entrances, but these were finely carved rock arches with intricate patterns etched along their edges—almost as if they were proper doorways. Dozens of them dotted the cavern walls, bookended by notches in the rock. Within the notches, there were brightly colored stones, forming an entire rainbow streaking along the chamber. Bill glanced at the stones beside the doorway he stood within, and he recognized the jewels immediately: evolution stones, each glowing with their own internal energies. Yet these seemed to serve more as decoration than as practical fixtures; the majority of the light filling the chamber was bright orange, intense, and shed by a single source far below the stone-cut roadways.

Magma. An entire pool of magma bubbling and rumbling in the very bowels of the chamber. Looking up, Bill could just see a comparatively small circle of blackness spotted with stars. And it was then that he knew. He knew _exactly_ where he was.

“Mount Chimney,” Bill breathed. “Oh no. That’s why it’s so hot here.” Pulling his eyes away from the circle, Bill scanned the walls of the chamber for any indication of which one he needed to get to. “Adam, we should act quickly. I don’t think we’ll fare too well in this heat, and I don’t want to spend too long anywhere near that magma pool. Okay?”

He was answered with silence.

“Adam?”

In his head, he heard a low growl. Without warning, a light flashed in front of his eyes, and a different sight blossomed in front of him. A pink and violet light filtered from the ceiling, displacing the orange glow from the bottom of the well. The walls smoothed out into gold plaster, and the cobblestone roadways became white-marble staircases. Each ixodida was replaced with hazy, gray figures in long, purple robes, and the doorways … the doorways became arches of ornate gold inlayed with jewels. Bill felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared out at this second scene, but the longer he looked, the more it began to shimmer and fade away, back into the rock-and-magma chamber all around him. His breath came in gasps as his mind reeled. What was that? That wasn’t real … was it? What was this growl?

He gripped the doorway harder, not even caring how the rock felt beneath his gloved hand. It steadied him. It steadied him just enough to let him listen to that growl.

And then, he realized it was Adam.

_Blasphemers,_ Adam hissed.

Bill wanted to ask. He really did.

The problem was that at that very moment, four ground-type ixodida descended on him.

* * *

When Bill opened his eyes next, he was staring up at a vaulted ceiling made of cut, gray stone. Colorful lights danced across it, weaving rainbows on the shadowy surface. It was calming. Peaceful, even. As he lay on a smooth, stone surface, he almost forgot why he was there.

And then a face swam into view.

Yelping, Bill pulled himself to his hands and knees and backed away as quickly as he could from the ground-type ixodida. It—he, a teenage he, judging by the size of his body and he smooth babyishness of his face—tilted its head and emitted a low whine. Then, the ixodida turned and scuttled back to a group of three others of its kind, three small, childlike ixodida whose dusty-brown bodies were studded with spikes. The four of them huddled over a patch of brown and black, chittering softly to each other in wordless questions. Upon seeing the flash of color the ixodida held between them, Bill reached up to his head and felt his bare scalp and horns.

“Hey!” he shouted.

Scrambling forward on his hands and knees, he shooed the other ixodida away from his hat, bag, and gloves. They yelped and barked before dispersing to the edges of the room. Bill snatched his things from the floor and hastily put them on as he threw a stern glare at the others.

“Don’t take things that aren’t yours,” he said.

All of them looked at each other in confusion before staring back at Bill with wide-open eyes and tilted heads.

And _then_ Bill realized what he had done. Rising to his feet, he let his stern glare dissolve into an apologetic glance.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I promise I don’t mean any harm.” He extended a hand. “My name is Bill. I’m here to help you.”

“You are very strange.”

Bill whirled around at the sound of the new voice. Behind him, he saw a male ground-type ixodida perched on a stone bench at the far end of the room. The other ixodida’s quills rose as he examined Bill, but otherwise, his face was completely expressionless.

“Come again?” Bill asked.

“I said you are strange,” the creature repeated. “You are one of our brothers, yet you wear human clothes. Why?”

“I ...” Bill glanced to the side, his mind flaring with the warning Adam had given him earlier.

_You may admit you are a rogue. Do not mention the Gray Rebellion, and you will be safe._

Bill let his shoulder sag, relieved that his symbiont was feeling like itself again. “I have the body of one of you, but my mind is still human.”

The monarch lifted his chin. “A human mind. Tell me, then. Why have you come here?”

Taking a deep breath, Bill straightened his back and stood tall. He only hoped that he could feign confidence well enough to earn the other ixodida’s respect.

“As I’ve said, I’ve come to offer help,” he said.

“Help?” The other ixodida rose off the bench and took a few steps forward, its toes scraping gently against the stone. “Why would we need help?”

Bill hesitated, waiting for Adam’s answer. Thankfully, it was quick.

_Monarchs are proud, Bill. You must be straightforward. If you admit you bear a warning to them concerning the humans, they will see you as one of them, not as one of their enemy._

He considered questioning Adam about Lanette’s threat, but he had no time. The monarch in front of him was already in motion. His movements were subtle, though. A slight spreading of the claws. Left foot shifting back a fraction of an inch. Weight flowing from the front foot to the back. The expression on the ground-type’s face may not have changed in the slightest, but Bill could see the signs as if they were obvious. He was letting the monarch slip into an aggressive stance. If he didn’t speak now, there was going to be a fight.

“I came to warn you,” Bill said.

“Warn us?”

The space between the monarch’s fingers narrowed, and his legs slackened. These, too, were only subtle movements, but Bill was watching for them, praying silently that they would happen. He took a breath in relief when they did.

“Yes,” Bill said. “About the humans. They think you’re dangerous.”

At that, the monarch straightened, easing completely out of his fighting stance. “You poor, naïve creature. Did you think we had no idea?”

Bill shook his head. “No, I know you do. You must think we’re dangerous too.”

In his head, he could feel Adam’s unease, like a cold shift across his brain.

“But not all of us are,” Bill continued, rushing to correct what he thought was the issue. “I can help you. We aren’t normally a war-loving species. We can have peace if we can set aside our differences and talk to one another.” He extended a hand, palm out. “You must know that there are humans planning to attack your burrows in the morning. They’ll try to wipe you out with water-type pokémon. But if you let me help you, I can stop them. All I need to know is what it is you want. What can we give you that will help build peace between us?”

_Well,_ Adam said immediately after Bill had finished, _I would say you made an excellent argument. But then you all but announced you side with the humans._

A chill ran through Bill the moment he realized what Adam meant. He straightened, his eyes locked on the monarch. Across the room, the monarch stiffened as well, easing back into the defensive stance.

Adam sighed in exasperation. _Bill. Listen to these instructions. Do not show fear, first of all._

Bill felt his face freeze into the expression of determination he had sported during his speech. He could feel the muscles—the way they tensed around his eyes, the way his lips straightened. Those weren’t the only changes, either. Throughout his body, his bones shifted, locking into place: his back was forced to straighten, his arms remained stiff at his sides, and his feet became firmly planted on the earth.

_Now, listen to what I have to say and repeat it exactly._

Words filtered across Bill’s mind then, and before he could think about them, he found himself letting them spill from his mouth.

“I’ve lived with the humans for as long as I can remember,” Bill told the monarch. “I know what they want, so I’m offering myself to you as an advantage. You can have an empire on this planet. You can rest here if you want. But in order to do that, we need to form a pact with the humans. Give me terms to deliver to them, and I will do all that I can to ensure that this war ends.”

The monarch tilted his head. “Why should we trust you? Why would the humans listen to you?”

Bill felt himself smile, although he wasn’t sure if it was his own expression. “I was important to the humans when I was one of them. I can use my status to make them listen.”

“Fascinating.” The monarch straightened, dropping the defensive stance as he padded forward. “You must know that even if we agree to work alongside you, we cannot decide to end the war against the people of this planet. That decision rests solely with the empress of this colony.”

This was new to Bill, of course, but he couldn’t express that. New words flitted across his brain from Adam’s, and he knew that if he wanted to hold the monarch’s attention, he needed to keep close to his symbiont’s instructions.

“I’m well aware of that,” Bill said. “I plan on addressing the empress directly, but I need as much support as I can garner before approaching her.”

“It would be far better to approach her directly,” the monarch replied. “I doubt you are aware of this, being a creature of this planet, but our empress is Her Benevolent Majesty, the last ruler of the Violet Throne. She would be most interested in hearing any proposal for peace.”

Bill could feel Adam bristle inside him. The network of filaments just under his skin felt electrified, and the next words Bill could hear in his head came in hisses.

_How could she be here?_ Adam said.

“Her Benevolent Majesty?” Bill asked.

Adam’s grip on his body tightened, cutting his thought short.

_No, Bill. Ask him where she is. I must know._

Nodding, Bill added, “If she’s truly willing to form a truce with humans, then I’d certainly be willing to speak with her as well. However, there’s just one issue: I’m not sure where she is.”

The monarch snorted. “Well. You must understand that I would be unwilling to tell you, given the circumstances.”

Bill blinked. “What circumstances are those?”

In response, the monarch lowered his eyes. “You are of the Iron Clan, yes?”

“I suppose you’ve seen my claws,” Bill replied with a sheepish grin. “Yes. I’m a steel-type.”

“Then you must be aware that all members of the Iron Clan were, on our home world, part of the terrorist group that sought to overthrow Her Benevolent Majesty.”

Bill swallowed and issued a single question to Adam. _Terrorists?!_

_We were not,_ Adam answered.

_That’s not going to stop him from thinking that you were!_ Bill snapped. _What do I do now?!_

_Simple. Lie._

Bill shifted on his feet again. _If you weren’t a terrorist, why are you proposing that I lie?!_

_Because, Bill, your job right now is to convince this monarch you mean him no harm. Admitting you have anything to do with the Gray Rebellion will not convince him._

_I don’t have anything to do with the Gray Rebellion!_

_You and I share a body. That is close enough._

He moved his eyes back to the monarch. _I’m really starting to dislike our situation._

_As you humans say, tough luck._

Bill took a deep breath. “The steel-types on your home world might have been trying to overthrow your empress, but I can tell you with the utmost certainty that I’m not. I wouldn’t be trying this hard to forge peace between you and humankind if I didn’t want you to survive.”

The monarch spread his claws. “But you are a steel-type.”

“It was convenient for my parasite at the time. You know we can’t change types after we’ve finished transforming.”

In response, the monarch took a few seconds to study his companion again. Bill could feel his stare boring into him, flicking up and down his height before resting once more on his face. All the while, Bill breathed evenly, silently praying that the monarch would buy it. It wasn’t a complete lie, though. While he knew that Adam chose their type because it was “noble”—whatever that meant—being a steel-type certainly had its advantages during their escape and the hours following. Bill couldn’t imagine surviving half of what he did if he didn’t have a steel-type’s heightened defenses.

Had he not been standing in front of something that could kill him, he might have laughed at the thought of being _grateful_ about any part of his situation.

He was saved from potential embarrassment by the sight of the monarch striding forward. Bill stiffened, searching his mind for Adam’s presence. Adam was still there, almost like a lump of ice sitting in the back of Bill’s skull. Bill could practically feel the parasite draw electricity from his brain and read the impulses that jolted through his ocular nerves. Between that feeling and the way the monarch was slowly approaching him, any feeling of gratitude instantly dissolved.

“Come with me,” the monarch said.

He moved past Bill, sauntering towards the doorway. One of his clawed hands curled towards the four drones, who instantly scampered after him on all fours. Bill, meanwhile, turned and hesitated, only to feel his muscles tense.

_Follow but pay close attention,_ Adam told him. _You must be on guard. At the slightest hint that you are in danger, flee. Understand?_

Bill nodded and walked forward, following the other ixodida.

The six of them exited the chamber in silence, and Bill realized where they were: at the highest chamber in the interior of the volcano. He looked over the edge of the spiraling, stone walkway to glance at the magma pool far below. Even from up there, hundreds of feet above where he must have started out, he could feel the intense heat of the molten earth rippling up from the volcano’s core. He breathed, his lungs filling with the strong scent of ash and sulfur, as he shuddered and turned back to the monarch.

Then, the monarch looked at him for only a few brief seconds. And at the end of these brief seconds, he opened his mouth wide and screamed.

Bill flinched, gritting his teeth against the noise as it tore through his ears. Inside him, Adam leapt at his mind. His entire body shuddered and tensed, and Adam’s voice screamed through his head.

_Move, Bill! Move now! That is a call to arms! Your efforts were for nothing!_

He twisted, breaking out of Adam’s hold not as an act of rebellion but instead one of obedience. He tried to launch himself forward, to bolt down the road and reach the nearest archway, but eight hands grabbed him by the arms and threw him back. His feet skittered desperately across the stones, and he threw his weight back with the hope that he could break out of the drones’ hold. But no matter what he did, the four ground-type drones held fast. They leaned into him and hissed low, shaping a wordless threat to keep him still. Trapped in their hold, Bill panted and craned his neck back to the monarch. The creature towered over him now. His tail switched in impatience as he gazed down at his guest.

“Thank you for your warning about the humans,” he drawled, “but we will decline the prospect of peace with them. We will not rest on this island until the human race is exterminated from it. We have no choice.”

“That … that call,” Bill said. “You ...”

“I have ordered them to attack, yes,” the monarch replied. “The humans are not aware of all our exits, nor are they aware of our numbers. Their settlement to the west will be eliminated quickly.”

Bill’s eyes widened. “No … no! You can’t! Please!”

“As for you,” the monarch continued, “I am afraid we cannot risk allowing you to live. We cannot risk the possibility that you may be carrying a member of the Gray Rebellion. Her Benevolent Majesty must be protected at all costs.”

“No! Please! Please, listen to me! You can’t …!”

The monarch leaned down and exhaled a soft, earthy breath. “However, I pity you. I believe you are telling the truth about possessing a human mind. Thus, I will give you one last word of advice.” His voice dropped into a low whisper. “You have made a grave mistake in listening to that thing. Consider this a favor.”

He straightened his back and extended his hand. His claws curled and pointed to the center of the volcano, past the lip of the road and into the hot smoke over the magma. And then, he said two firm words.

“Throw him.”

With what Bill considered to be a surprising amount of force, the four drones swung him by his arms and pitched him into the hot air over the magma pool. His hands flailed in a desperate attempt to grab one of the drones, the side of the road, each road going down—anything—but he realized in his horror that they threw him too far. There was no hope. He was falling, and he was falling fast, directly towards the magma. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Moments after Bill made this revelation, the heat paid him some semblance of mercy.

It knocked him out.


	16. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bodies hit the floor.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 9_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT_  
 _DESIGNATION: THE ADAM INCIDENT, FILE 014_  
 _DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING—CONVERSATION BETWEEN C-01 AND PROFESSOR YVONNE NETTLE_  
 _DATE-TIME: RECORDING DATE, 17/10/01, 16:32_

_C-01  
Ah! Professor Nettle! We meet again!_

_NETTLE  
I’d received your invitation. Why here, of all places?_

_C-01  
Why the apartment you assigned William, you mean? Why his home-away-from-home in a facility where he should have been safe? Why his personal spot that he accepted under the assumption that the next few weeks would be a pleasure for him? Simple, Yvonne. No one would look here. Also, the welcoming committee left a fruit basket in his fridge, and what kind of man would I be if I let perfectly good food go to waste?_

_[SOUND OF C-01 BITING INTO AN APPLE.]_

_NETTLE  
I have no patience for this, McKenzie. What is it that you want from me?_

_C-01  
There should be a “professor” in there somewhere, love._

_[PAUSE IN CONVERSATION.]_

_C-01  
Fine. Be that way. I need your analyses._

_NETTLE  
My what?_

_C-01  
I know about your hackers. D.E.V.A. agents have been watching your little insects carefully ever since we noticed them on our science team’s secure lines. We know you’re streaming information from Project Stardust, and more importantly, we’ve been tracking William and his actions through that hacked collar you’ve put on him. We need all of your data. All of your speculation. If you Rocket scientists have breathed a single word about the ixodida, we need to hear what it was._

_NETTLE  
And why would I grant you permission to do that?_

_C-01  
Because I have leverage._

_NETTLE  
Oh, you do now?_

_C-01  
Of course. Take a look at where we are, Professor Nettle. Take a good, long look._

_NETTLE  
Yes. We’re in your son’s apartment. We’ve established that._

_C-01  
And you notice how he’s not in it?_

_NETTLE  
Obviously._

_C-01  
Yes, well, you’re aware of a thing called the Yeled Protocol?_

_NETTLE  
Yes. We’ve discussed this. Team Rocket has officially disassociated itself with the agent responsible. Your son’s condition was a mistake on our part and a conscious action on hers. We had no intention of even touching him._

_C-01  
We have the security tapes. If the moments before his capture by your men are any indication, you have some balls. A jynx? Really?_

_NETTLE  
He stopped being your son the moment he was infected. He’s gone, Professor McKenzie. The Yeled Protocol didn’t apply to him when we attempted to collect him._

_C-01  
Oh, good, you know how to properly address your peers. Right. So, that’s bollocks, and I can tell you right now how I know. I know because if William was completely gone, your jynx would be as good as dead. You challenged a bloody steel-type with abilities no one fully understands yet. Be happy William’s still in there. Present tense, Nettle. Yeled Protocol still applies._

_NETTLE  
Professor McKenzie—_

_C-01  
And as for the other matter, our officers have gone through those bloody tapes thoroughly. You want to know how many violations to the protocol there were? Here’s a hint: it’s a bloody massive number. Even just a tiny percentage of the list would’ve been enough to annihilate you, but you decided to make our job easier by giving us a whole bloody lot of reasons. And you know why we haven’t wiped you off the face of the earth yet?_

_[PAUSE IN CONVERSATION.]_

_C-01  
It’s because you might know something we don’t. But believe me, Nettle. We have big [EXPLETIVE] guns pointed directly at your [EXPLETIVE] headquarters and your [EXPLETIVE] of a boss, and he bloody well doesn’t know it. If it turns out you don’t know anything or if you screw with me from now until I’m done with you, you’d better [EXPLETIVE] believe I’m gonna pull those triggers._

_NETTLE  
I see._

_C-01  
Good. Meet me in the mess hall at 2030. Bring the latest reports from your Rocket agents on a flash drive, and remember. You screw me, I have things you’ve never even dreamed of blow a crater into your headquarters. Got it?_

_NETTLE  
Understood._

_C-01  
Good. Now get out._

_[END RECORDING.]_

* * *

Bill had expected to arrive back in Adam’s tent. He quickly wondered what good that would have done, but it still would have been a slightly more welcome sight than the unending black he found himself floating in. He tried to breathe, but each breath felt like molten gelatin: hot and suffocating. He tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t obey. He simply floated, waiting for the moment when he would stop thinking altogether.

So this was it. He was going to die. Bill had to admit that death by volcano was not quite the way he had expected he would go, but then again, life had a strange way of playing out. It never went the way one planned, and he knew that. He knew that oh so well for a variety of reasons, the least of which was the fact that he was going to die in the body of a half-alien mutant.

He wondered what death would feel like. What dying itself would feel like. He knew about the saying: one’s life would flash before their eyes just before they died. But this? This was nothing. He was going to die, and all he could see was an unending nothing.

_You are not going to die._

A twinge of irritation ran through Bill’s mind. He had hoped that in his death, he would get a moment of peace, but apparently, Adam wanted to take even that from him.

_I do not want to take anything from you. I want to give to you. Do you want to live?_

Of course Bill wanted to live. Bill had lists of things he wanted to do, wanted to see, wanted to discover. He couldn’t die yet!

_Then we will need to act quickly. I can merge my reserves of energy with yours. This will bind our lives together, just as it has with any other of my kind and their hosts. We will be one, and we will fight as one. Do not fear this; for us, it will only be temporary. I can separate us after the battle. I have not forgotten the main tenet of our agreement, and I do not intend on doing so now._

It seemed to Bill that there was a “but” to that. Adam was making the game too easy. There had to have been loopholes.

_Astute. Yes, there is a condition. All things come with a price, and you know what that price is in this case._

He did. A spike of anger lanced through Bill’s mind at the thought of it.

_It must be done. Now that the leader of this nest has acknowledged you as a threat, he and the others will stop at nothing to ensure that you do not survive. News travels quickly through colonies. You will not have a choice. We will not be able to rest. They will find us, no matter where on this planet we go. You must agree, Bill._

He thought about it. And then he squirmed in his incorporeal state, attempting to emulate thrashing as best as possible. No. He would never. He would absolutely not agree to what Adam was asking. He would almost prefer his own death to killing someone else.

_Is that so? Very well, Bill. Goodbye._

Then, there was silence again. Dark, unending silence. Bill settled back into it, feeling the void all around him, the bereft-of-a-body emptiness. He wondered how long it had been since he had fallen unconscious. The magma pool couldn’t be far below him.

Just as quickly as he had settled into the silence, his thoughts stirred again. He considered death. It seemed so inevitable now. He thought about all the things he wanted from life, all the things that nearly drove him to agree to Adam’s terms.

He had so much left to do.

To discover.

To learn.

To experience.

_To protect._

Bill jolted. The last thought echoed through his head, but the voice was unfamiliar. Was it his? Adam’s? He couldn’t tell. His mind pushed through the darkness, reaching out to find it again.

_To protect._

What? To protect what? He was struggling to remember. The heat was permeating the darkness now, and that was his only sensation. It clouded his thoughts and his memories, and it lured him towards confusion.

_No. I’ve got to … I’ve got to think! Concentrate! Come on!_

_To protect._

Something was coming through. Sparks of memories flared in the void. His sister’s voice. The pride he felt over the storage system. A distant song from a giant’s shadow. His pokémon’s faces. Lanette’s smile. Thom’s laughter. His mother. His friends. His dreams. The scream of the ixodida.

_Adam!_

The parasite’s presence wrapped around him, as if it had been waiting for him all this time. _Yes?_

_I’ve thought about it,_ he said.

_And?_

_There really isn’t a way around killing them, is there?_

_Not until we overthrow the empress._

_That’s your ultimate goal?_

_It is now._

Bill huffed. It was an act that, in hindsight, was a bit ridiculous considering he didn’t seem to have lungs at the moment, but at the very least, the fact that he noticed this was a good sign. It meant that he was ready. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being ready, but he loathed the idea of giving up. Especially now.

_Fine. Let’s do it._

_Excellent. Now, brace yourself, Bill. This next part will be disorienting._

Adam neglected to mention feeling as if a thousand needles of heat and light were being jammed into his body all at once, nor did the symbiont mention the feeling of being hurtled hundreds of miles an hour into the air, directly at a bright, gold light that exploded across Bill’s vision.

Disorienting would be putting it mildly.

* * *

The next few seconds went by in extremely rapid succession. Bill’s eyes snapped open, and in the following instant, he realized that time outside of his body had barely passed. He was still tumbling towards the magma pool, but he was barely halfway down the volcano’s shaft. At first, he thought time was slowing down in his panic, but then he noticed that the light around him looked odd. Everything had a golden tinge to it, as if he was looking at the world through yellow-tinted glasses.

That’s when he noticed that the golden light was coming from his skin. And it was then that he realized he was literally slowing down.

“Bill, quickly, do you feel that?” he said. But he realized that it was Adam’s thoughts, filtered through his mouth. Yet … there was no numbness, no being pulled to the back of his head. It was as if he and Adam were existing in the exact same place at the same moment.

“I … what?” he replied.

“Slow as usual, human.”

He felt his body jolt to a halt, hovering mere feet from the magma pool. It was then that Bill figured out what Adam was asking. He could feel it. He could feel his skin. He could feel the electricity coursing through it, the way the air seemed to push against it, the sharpness of something at his back. His hands reached down and yanked at his shirt, pulling it loose from his pants—just enough to let his aching tail unwind from his waist and arc out behind him. Looking back, he watched it wave and snap beneath two pairs of golden energy streams. He arched his back, marveling at the jets as they streamed from his shoulder blades like fairy wings.

Then, twisting in the air, he pushed the energy under his skin outward and launched his body into the sky.

“What is this?” he murmured. “What’s going on?”

The answer came to him in the form of thoughts, as if he knew already and was simply recalling what it meant. He moved quickly, cutting through the air and past the screaming ground-types until he came to a stop far above the volcano’s peak itself. Gazing down at the world, he trembled.

“Magnet Rise,” he said. “That’s how—yes.” His voice dropped into a monotone. “That is correct, Bill. That is how we got to Hoenn. Do not spend too long in our head. The longer you do, the harder it will be to pull us apart. Understand?” He placed a hand on his forehead. The thoughts stirring in his mind were swirling with Adam’s, almost as if they were leaking out of his brain while Adam’s were leaking into his. “R-right. And in any case ...” He removed his hands and looked down. “Right. We need to focus. What do we ...”

He trailed off when he saw Fallarbor’s hunting party. Even from where he was, he could see them. He could see them so clearly, as if he was hovering directly above them. All the details. All the looks of determination. All of the individual humans gathered in the ash-covered fields of the western route. And at the same time, he could hear the ixodida, the scraping claws and chattering calls of the ground-types beneath the earth. The two were growing closer and closer together, and it would be a matter of moments before they met.

“No!”

His tail flipped in the air, pointing him downward, and in a graceful dive, Bill swooped down, back towards the ground-type monarch. The drones barked at him, hands flailing around them to collect enough rocks and dirt to form bones to fling at him, but none of them were quick enough. Bill dodged each of their attacks, swinging down and hooking his arms around the waist of his target, and with surprisingly little effort, he lifted the monarch flailing and screaming into the air. Yet no matter how loudly the creature in his arms shrieked or how hard the monarch thrashed, Bill refused to let go, opting instead on carrying him up and over the lip of the volcano’s caldera. Together, they skimmed the mountainside, keeping dangerously close to the ground as they moved rapidly towards the battlefield.

“Call them off!” Bill shouted.

The monarch stopped fighting. “Your precious humans will die here, you pathetic gnat.”

Bill yanked him back into the air, ascending like a rocket until the shrubs dotting the mountainside were green specks.

“Call them off, or I’ll drop you!” Bill snapped.

“I do not fear death,” the monarch replied evenly.

Bill hissed. The monarch’s calm tone threw part of him off—just the part that was still himself. At the same time, the part that must have been Adam dug its fingers into the creature’s back and watched its calm expression.

“One more chance to settle this civilly. Call them off, _or you will give me a reason to go after your empress._ ”

The monarch didn’t say a word. He didn’t flinch. He merely stared calmly at Bill as the bullet went through his shoulder and struck Bill’s with a metallic ping. Looking down, beyond the monarch, Bill realized where he had taken them: directly over the battlefield. All human eyes were pointed up, straight at them.

“No!” Bill whispered. “Don’t look at me! Pay attention to the burrows!”

“No, they should watch us. Watch us and die,” the monarch rasped. Then, he gripped Bill’s arms, pulled himself up until his mouth drew close to his ear, and whispered, “Long live Her Benevolent Majesty. May she reign forever.”

In a fit of anger Bill knew wasn’t entirely his own, he threw the monarch directly at the ground. Gunshots rang out, riddling the monarch’s body …

… And—very likely, Bill assumed—masking the sound of the drones’ screams.

The humans had no warning before the ixodida streamed from their burrows. Any warning they could have gotten was drowned out by the chaos they had already stirred among themselves. By the time the hunting party of Fallarbor realized what was going on, the ixodida descended upon several of its members, dragging them into tight knots of claws and sprays of blood. It was only then that the water and grass-type pokémon were finally turned on the ixodida, and the battle truly began.

“No!” Bill cried out again, desperately this time, as he dove into the fray. He needed to find the monarch. He needed to kill him. That was the only way—

A hard blow to the side of his head jolted him out of his flight path. It was followed by a blast of hot, green light that drove him into the ground. The golden light around his body dissipated the instant he slammed into the earth, only to be replaced by a dull ache all over his body. Groaning, he picked himself back up, but another sharp blow came down on his head. With some effort, he flipped himself over and threw his hands into the air, conjuring a quick Protect before Lanette’s crowbar could smash into his face. Staring up at her, he could see the wild look in her eyes, the way her teeth gritted, and the way her entire body tensed.

“Traitor!” she screamed. “You asshole! You told them! You told them what we were doing!”

The barrier between them dissipated, forcing Lanette to lose her footing. She tumbled down, crowbar first, until Bill grabbed her weapon with both hands.

“I don’t have time for this!” he cried. “I’m sorry!”

With that, he shoved her off him, an act that, by sheer accident, flung her into the air. Bill scrambled to his feet just in time to see his partner come down hard on her back several feet away. She cried out, prompting her altaria to rear back and screech from where it stood mere feet away. The bird swung her head down as her open beak filled with a brilliant, green light. But that wasn’t the only threat Bill sensed. All around him, humans turned their guns on him. Their weapons roared, but their bullets ripped through Bill’s shirt and struck his armor with harmless pings. Bill hissed and fell into an attack stance—arms shielding his face, knees bent, feet wide apart. And in his throat, he could feel a fire, as if the muscles of his neck were sprouting razor blades. Something in his core bubbled up, and without thinking, he responded.

His mouth opened, and he screamed. But it wasn’t like any other scream he experienced, and it wasn’t like the other ixodida screams. This one was deafening and metallic, like metal nails on a chalkboard, and the air rippled with it. All action on the battlefield froze, save for the altaria’s attack, which she launched into the ground. Everything else—Lanette, the other humans, the pokémon, the ixodida—doubled over and trembled at the sound. Only when the shriek died in his throat did Bill realize that everyone else was screaming; their voices had been drowned completely by his own.

Bill had no time to marvel at what he did. His body dropped to its hands and feet, and he dashed forward with a new purpose in mind: to find the monarch.

He knew the thought was Adam’s. He couldn’t imagine how he would have fathomed what he did then. All he knew was that he had to find the monarch. He had to find the monarch’s core. He had to devour the thing, and then … then he didn’t know. The thought died there, but Adam seemed to think it would end the battle instantly.

Bill couldn’t argue with that.

So as the combatants all around him slowly came back to their senses and resumed their battle, he darted between them. He evaded their hands and their shots as his nose locked onto the strongest scent he could find. Blood. Fresh earth. Something sweet and sour and unlike anything he had ever smelled. He knew it was the monarch. Nothing else seemed to matter right then. Not the bullets ripping through his clothes and ricocheting off his armor. Not Lanette’s screams through the din of the fight. Not the errant attack that would have struck him if he didn’t instinctively dive low or leap over them. He was like an animal on the hunt, and his prey was close.

Sure enough, he found the monarch at the heart of the battle, surrounded by humans and pokémon. Water-types—marill, azumarill, lombre, lotad—fired jet after jet of water and bubbles at the ixodida. Every time the jets struck, the monarch pinwheeled in place like a carnival doll and nearly tipped over, and at the most violent turn, the humans shot him with round upon round of bullets. Yet the monarch didn’t fall. He steadied himself on his feet, back bent and claws hanging in front of him. His body was riddled with bullet holes, but as he stood, each hole closed up rapidly, like the apertures on dozens of macabre cameras. Limbs that were nearly detached snaked back to the trunk of his body and rejoined his flesh. Missing chunks in his face would bubble back into place until, at last, he looked as if nothing had happened.

“You poor creatures,” he growled. “Did you honestly believe that it would be that easy?”

Ground-type ixodida burst from the earth, latching their claws onto whatever they could grab—humans, pokémon, it didn’t matter. Then, just as quickly as they appeared, they vanished again, back into the earth as they dragged their screaming prey under. Bill could hear the wet squelches of tearing flesh, and then, each voice underground fell completely and abruptly silent. That was when Bill stood, rising into the crowd to his full height.

The humans around them readied their guns again. One even shot, piercing the monarch in the shoulder, but the ixodida did one thing Bill didn’t expect in response.

He grinned.

A chill ran through Bill at that point. He had only seen ixodida that were incapable of forming expressions, yet here this one was, grinning.

“Do I scare you?” the monarch said. “Do you think of me as a monster, brother?”

Bill ground his feet into the earth. “No.”

A flash of gold erupted around Bill’s body, and he took off into the crowd, snatching the monarch into the air. Once again, they took to the skies, this time ignoring the shots fired at them.

“I will not call them off,” the monarch told him.

“I didn’t expect you to,” Bill replied.

They arced over the battlefield, sailed through the air away from the fight, and slammed into the earth several yards away. Ash flew up into a cloud, engulfing both ixodida instantly. Bill drew himself off the monarch, vanishing into the fog of dust. A few seconds later, the monarch rose shakily to his own feet and popped his shoulder back into its socket with an audible crack. The wide grin still extended across his face.

“Are you attempting to hide?” he asked. “Did you forget that earth is my element? I can sense you. I can feel your entire shape through the ash. I can count the individual threads of your garments, and I can see each pore in your skin as if you were right in front of me. You cannot hide, little one.”

It took a minute for the ash to settle. And Bill was standing within arm’s reach of the monarch.

“I know,” he replied calmly.

The monarch’s grin began to fade.

Bill cast a glance down at his tail, which rose slowly to his side. He could feel an energy burn within him, the same kind of energy that had ebbed under his skin when he used Magnet Rise and Bullet Punch. But this time, it snaked down his spine, pouring itself into his tail. Each segment in its length flashed silver, and every muscle solidified against his armor.

He spun, swinging his tail behind him, and it cut through the monarch’s waist as if it was made of clay.

Snatching the top half of the monarch out of the air with both claws, Bill watched as the bottom half fell limply at his feet. Blood poured freely, and part of the creature’s digestive system dangled from the cut. But besides the flow of blood and digestive fluids, the severed half of the creature remained still and unmoving. Glancing up, Bill was barely surprised to see that the monarch’s expression had settled back into blankness. Pallid and grunting, but still blank.

“No?” Bill asked. “Guess your core isn’t there. Then how about this?”

He summoned the same fire back into his tail and dropped the top half of the monarch. This time, when he swung his tail, he sent it cleanly through the creature’s neck. Both halves thumped to the ground, the head bouncing off the creature’s legs and rolling to a halt a few inches away. Looking down again, Bill observed the arms of the creature carefully. Still no movement. Then, turning to the head, he watched as the creature opened his eyes. The head grinned one last time as the spikes at its back twitched and moved. Something underneath them ripped, and as Bill crouched over the severed head, he could hear the soft scraping of claws on dry earth.

An engorged parasite dragged itself out of the tangle of spikes at the back of the creature’s head. Bill jammed his hand onto it and pulled it into the air. Its legs flailed and clacked in protest, but Bill didn’t seem to notice as he shoved the whole thing into his mouth and bit down. The parasite’s carapace crunched against his fangs. A splash of something acidic filled his mouth, and the entire thing slid easily down his throat. The familiar feeling of an intense fire blossomed from his stomach and reached every point of his body. He tilted his head back in momentary pleasure.

Then, he turned his head back to the battle. It hadn’t ended. Or, at least, it didn’t for the humans and the pokémon. Even at a distance, Bill could see all of the remaining ixodida.

Every last one was staring at him. Just standing there, dead still, staring at him with blank eyes.

And they were being shot at and attacked all the while.

“No,” Bill rasped. “No! Stop!”

Only the ixodida seemed to obey, dropping to the ground like rag dolls in unison. This didn’t stop the humans or their pokémon, however. Each one of them continued to attack until every last ixodida lay in pieces. And then, slowly, they stopped. They backed away. Guns lowered, and pokémon rested on their haunches. Then, a chorus of pops and flashes of light brought fire-types into the open, and quietly, they set fire to the field.

On a technical level, Bill wasn’t sure if the blood inside the ixodida parasites was _actually_ blood, but whatever it was, he could _smell_ it in the air. The acidic bite. The metal. The burning flesh. It smelled like meat laced with ammonia.

He trembled and dropped to his knees. In his head, he could feel something pull free, and all of a sudden, he was alone in his mind. His hands fell to the earth, and he bowed his head low at the emptiness.

_There,_ Adam murmured. _It is done._

“No ...” Bill said. “No, it didn’t have to end like this!”

Adam didn’t respond as it crawled to the back of Bill’s head. And for a long while, no one moved or said a word. There was just the roar of the flames at the center of the hunting party’s circle. And then, there was the sound of boots crunching on dead grass.

Bill didn’t even have to look up to know Lanette had found him.

“I hope you’re happy,” she snapped. “Half our party is gone. I don’t know what the hell you did over here, but I know what you did in their nest. You’re a self-righteous asshole, Bill.”

He didn’t move. Lanette gripped her crowbar tighter and took another step towards him.

“Which one of you is in control right now?” she barked. “Is there even a difference anymore?”

Bill took a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

He lifted his chin and looked into her eyes—her hard, stony eyes. “Yes … it’s me.”

“Then make this easy,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “On your back. Now.”

At once, he started, his eyes locked on her. His brain had frozen; he couldn’t process the words she had said or why she had said them.

He lingered for a second too long. Her boot came up and connected hard with his nose, jolting him backwards. Bill tasted blood and felt his nose snap, but just as quickly as it snapped, it reformed, settling back into its old shape before his back hit the ground. But the blood … there was nothing he could do about the blood. It flooded his nose and nearly made him choke, if Lanette’s foot didn’t come down hard onto his stomach and forced him to cough. He shuddered and turned his head to the side, letting the remaining blood drain onto the dirt.

“William McKenzie,” she announced. “You have been found guilty of treason against the Haven of Fallarbor Town. As acting head of the haven, I hereby sentence you to execution.” She raised her crowbar, its sharp wedge end aimed directly at Bill’s heart. “May the gods have mercy on your—”

A set of jaws snapped around the bar. The rest of Manectric’s body followed, forcing Lanette to twist and stumble towards the ground. She fell to one knee instead, her hands closing around her crowbar as she bared her teeth at the dog. Manectric returned the look, keeping its jaws clamped tightly on the center of the bar. Behind them, a shot rang out, and as Bill craned his neck, he could see Officer Jenny standing several feet away from Lanette’s right side and Thom several feet away from Lanette’s left. Jenny had her gun raised but pointed towards the ground at Thom’s feet, and Thom, eyes wide and lips pursed, had his hands up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Thom exclaimed. “I think we all need to chill out for a sec here.”

“Wattson,” Lanette growled without taking her eyes off the dog. “Get your manectric off me, or I’ll—”

“What, charge me with treason?” Thom replied.

Officer Jenny shifted her gun to point at Thom’s head. “Sounds reasonable.”

Thom turned back to Jenny. “Whoa! Hey! Come on now! We’re all friends here, right?”

“Grow up, Wattson,” Jenny snapped. “In fact, look down.”

“I’d rather not, thanks,” Thom said. “Because, y’know, there’s a dead ixodida there. Kinda messy. And well, it’s no secret that I’m a little squeamish, so—”

“What in the gods’ names are you even doing here instead of watching over Raye?” Lanette snapped.

“She’ll be fine,” Thom answered as he waved his hand. “It’s the middle of the night, and you went off to wipe out the ixodida nest. I figured that if you were really gonna get the jump on them, there’d be nothing to worry about because all of them would be over here.”

She shot a glare over her shoulder. “There’s a burrow in the pokémon center’s basement, you idiot!”

Thom hesitated. “Oh yeah.” He shrugged. “Well, no harm done, anyway. I mean, I don’t know what happened exactly, but did you see the looks on the ixodida’s faces a moment ago? Completely dead-looking. Or, you know, more dead than usual. That was creepy.”

Lanette released her crowbar and swiveled around to face Thom. “Why are you wasting our time?”

“Well, at first, I was gonna join the fight because I figured there’d be a lot more of them than us, so maybe, I dunno, Manectric could do something. Grandpa taught him Ice Fang, you know? But then I saw Bill doing this really amazing stuff like fly through the air and take down a fully-trained monarch with his bare hands. Or … tail. I guess.”

Bill shifted uncomfortably and propped himself up on his elbows. Up until now, he had been sitting in shock over Thom’s sudden appearance, but now, hearing Thom describe what he did with a sort of reverence? That left a tight, cold knot in the pit of his stomach.

He didn’t want to look at the monarch either. He knew what he did. And even doing it to protect the people of Fallarbor didn’t seem like enough justification for it. Especially given what happened afterwards.

“He killed in cold blood,” Lanette stated plainly.

“So how is that different from what you guys were doing?” Thom asked. “Come on, guys. At least Bill did it to an ixodida that could defend itself. You all did it to ixodida that looked like they were surrendering.”

“They were in shock over the loss of their monarch. If they had a chance to recover, they would have chosen a new monarch and retaliated with even more force,” Lanette explained.

“That kinda makes it worse,” Thom said. “I mean, if you put it like that, that means Bill saved us. Before the ixodida stopped dead, they were slaughtering us. We only started slaughtering them because they stopped trying to kill us. And here you are, trying to kill off the guy who let you get a shot in. He’s on our side, guys. I don’t know why you’re calling him a traitor, but you gotta stop.”

Manectric set the crowbar down in front of Lanette. She snatched it up and rose to her feet. Her head bowed, and for a long while, she stood there, motionless and silent.

It was then that Bill thought he had a chance.

“Lanette,” he said. “I … I know what it looks like to you. But I swear, I—”

“Exile.”

“What?”

She raised her head. “I’m letting you live, but I’m sentencing you to exile. I don’t want to see you in Fallarbor Town anymore. Go.”

“What?!” This time, the question came from Thom. He stepped forward, brow furrowed in anger and fists raised. “Come on, Lanette! He didn’t do anything!”

“He killed someone!” Lanette shrieked.

“So what?! So has everyone else in your hunting party! How is he different from you?!”

“He’s different because he’s Bill!”

“What the hell does that even mean?!”

“It means ...”

Thom, Officer Jenny, and Lanette all turned to Bill the moment he said those two words. Stiffly, he rose to his feet and dusted himself off. His eyes were on the ground, but he tried his best not to look at the dead monarch. Slowly, his thoughts began to resolve themselves into a coherent response, into one coherent goal.

He knew then what he had to do.

“It means I’m not as in control as I thought I was.” He raised his eyes to Lanette. By then, his entire body was trembling, and he couldn’t help it. “I’ll … I’ll accept exile.”

“Wait, what?” Thom stepped forward. “C’mon, Bill! You can’t give up that easily! You know she’s not making any sense, and you know how valuable you can be to us! You gotta convince her you’re okay!”

Bill shook his head and swallowed. When he spoke next, his voice was barely audible. “I’m sorry, Thom. There’s something I need to do. I can’t stay here.”

“Like what?” Thom asked. “Can we help you with it?”

He forced himself to grin, but it was a shaky grin, one that threatened to collapse in on itself. “No. No, you can’t.” Then, turning to Lanette, he gave her the most apologetic glance he could muster. “Lanette … I’m sorry. I hope someday you’ll forgive me. In the meantime …” His grin faded, and his eyes drifted towards the ground. “… Please take care of Raye.”

She glared at him one more time and turned away. “Just go.”

With a small nod, Bill swung around and took a few steps towards Mt. Chimney. His skin crackled, and the golden aura flared to life around him again. He pushed off the ground and cut through the air, ascending in a rapid arc up and away from the battlefield. Within seconds, he was gone.

For a long time afterwards, there was only the sound of wind. Lanette kept her head bowed. Officer Jenny holstered her gun. Thom kept his eyes to the sky.

And then, finally, it was Thom who spoke first.

“So is anyone gonna talk about the fact that he knows how to fly now?”

* * *

Some distance away—he wasn’t sure how much, though he knew he had crossed from the ash-covered fields to the rugged mountain scrub—Bill landed and dissipated his golden aura. He breathed heavily, taking in the barrenness of his surroundings. And then, he dropped to his knees and cried out. Tears streamed down his face as he bent over, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

“Oh gods … oh gods, what have I done?!”

Adam’s presence blossomed in his head, but it was far more uncomfortable now than it ever had been. _You did what was necessary. The child was right. That entire settlement would have been wiped out had you not intervened._

“I killed someone,” Bill cried, his voice high and strained. “I killed someone! Oh gods, I killed someone!”

Adam constricted beneath Bill’s skin, applying pressure to his bones and muscles. Yet _that_ wasn’t uncomfortable. It was warm … gentle. Like the arms of a parent.

_Listen to me and never forget, Bill,_ it said. _You are not a murderer. You are a soldier. We are in a war, and you are doing what is right to protect this planet. So please. Do not be afraid of what you are._

Bill shook his head. “No! You don’t understand! It was for nothing! I tried to … and then … everything …!”

_I know. I understand. Some decisions are difficult, and sometimes, we make the wrong ones. Perhaps all of the violence that transpired today could have been prevented had you not tried to forge peace with the Sun Clan first. But that is in the past, and as much as you may wish you could, you cannot change what happened. However, there is another way you can fix things. And you know how._

The pressure in his body released, and Bill could feel Adam slithering back into his head.

_So go._

Bill shuddered and bowed deeper. “I can’t! I can’t do this! Adam—”

A thud cut off his thought. He raised his head slightly to see the carcass of a headless spinda. Taking in a shaking breath, Bill looked up further to see an absol standing over him. Her piercing, red eyes locked onto his, and she seemed unaware of the blood matting the fur around her scythe-like horn.

But neither the blood nor the carcass nor the stare of the pokémon herself shocked Bill more than hearing the absol speak to him.

“ _Eat. You will feel better._ ”

It was at that point that Bill felt he had had enough.

So he fainted.


	17. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bill learns the history of a long-dead world.

_D.E.V.A. CLEARANCE LEVEL 9_  
 _CLEARANCE ACCEPTED._  
 _DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT_  
 _DESIGNATION: THE ADAM INCIDENT, FILE 015_  
 _DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING—CONVERSATION BETWEEN C-01 AND PROFESSOR YVONNE NETTLE_  
 _DATE-TIME: RECORDING DATE, 17/10/01, 20:30_

_C-01  
Ah! Yvonne! Glad you could make it!_

_NETTLE  
Yes, well, with an invitation like that and with the escort you so graciously provided, I wouldn’t dream of failing to make our appointed meeting, Professor McKenzie._

_C-01  
Good to see you’ve become acquainted with Agent [REDACTED] and Agent [REDACTED]. They’re wonderful company. I could tell you stories, but I’m afraid they’re more for a casual situation. Say, for the mess hall, after hours, with a drink? Isn’t that right, gentlemen? _

_[PAUSE IN CONVERSATION. LENGTH: 26 SECONDS.]_

_C-01  
Anyway, let’s cut right to business. Have you got what I asked for?_

_NETTLE  
Yes._

_C-01  
Hand it to Agent [REDACTED] there, and he’ll pass it to me._

_NETTLE  
Fine._

_[PAUSE IN CONVERSATION. LENGTH: 12 SECONDS.]_

_C-01  
Thank you. See? That wasn’t so hard!_

_NETTLE  
May I go now?_

_C-01  
Ah. That brings us to the other point of the matter._

_NETTLE  
Oh God. What now? You have everything you want, don’t you?_

_C-01  
No, I don’t think I do. See, you pose a bit of a problem here._

_NETTLE  
Yes. You’ve established that. The Yeled Protocol._

_C-01  
Goodness no! Not that this time. No, Yvonne, this has very little to do with William and everything to do with your … benefactor, did you call them?_

_NETTLE  
Yes. Because that’s what they are. And if I may be so forward, considering who you work for, you have no right to judge._

_C-01  
Yes, well, your employers are becoming rather troublesome, you know. It’s a bit of a hassle to clean up after you lot._

_NETTLE  
And this has nothing to do with the Yeled Protocol? So tell me, Professor McKenzie. Why are you so interested in cleaning up after our affairs beyond what they mean for your children? Because Team Rocket is a criminal organization? Please. D.E.V.A. isn’t a law enforcement agency. You know that outside of the Yeled Protocol, you can’t do anything to us._

_C-01  
True, we aren’t, and technically, we can’t. And if it weren’t for our mutual interests, truth is D.E.V.A. wouldn’t exactly be opposed to what Team Rocket’s up to. Sure, you’re hell according to our actuaries, HR department, and other poor, unfortunate souls cursed to process our paperwork and arrangements until the day this tiny ball of rock we call home is finally annihilated, but you keep us in business. Just take [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], for example. And who can possibly forget the [REDACTED] Incident? Wonderful fun, that was. Drove my office monkeys crazy for a full month! Entertainment at its finest. But the point is, Yvonne, that if we really cared that much about whether or not you were on the right side of mundane law, we would have taken care of you ages ago with far less force than we’d use to uphold the Yeled Protocol. ‘Course, that would still wipe you off the face of this miserable little planet, but you get the idea._

_NETTLE  
You have an irritating habit of being unable to reach a point._

_C-01  
And your patience is impressively short. No, Professor Nettle, you Rockets pose a bit of a problem because, right now, you’re meddling in our territory. Now, how can we hope to study the ixodida if you keep taking them and exporting them to your laboratories or using their parasite forms to forcibly infect other people’s children?_

_NETTLE  
I thought we had settled that._

_C-01  
I’ll stop bringing it up once the look on your face when I do stops being entertaining._

_NETTLE  
Get on with it._

_C-01  
Yes, yes. But you see our difficulty, right? We can’t hope to work in these conditions. That’s why I’ve come up with the perfect solution._

_NETTLE  
Which is?_

_C-01  
You and Professor Oak help me with a wee side project._

_NETTLE  
Excuse me?_

_C-01  
You heard me. See, while the data you’ve already collected will be most helpful, there’s just one little thing nagging at me, and it’s Abel. I want to break him in._

_NETTLE  
What?_

_C-01  
You heard me. Help me break Abel in. I want him to think like a human, just like Adam._

_NETTLE  
You can’t be serious. We’ve done the research on that! There is absolutely no evidence that—_

_C-01  
Do it. Sam’s already agreed that there’s a possibility. If William could break free minutes after he woke up, why can’t Abel?_

_NETTLE  
Because we have no idea how or why Codename Adam could do it. Conveniently enough, we can’t find out unless we have Adam in hand, but unfortunately, as we’ve established thoroughly, that isn’t a possibility for either of us. And before you say anything more, there is nothing Team Rocket can do to fix that. There is nothing anyone can do. Adam has escaped to a quarantined region infested with ixodida, and the likelihood of successfully retrieving him is slim to none._

_C-01  
You let me worry about that. Work on Abel. Sam’s already been briefed. He’ll meet you in Laboratory G, as will I once I take care of a bit of business._

_NETTLE  
What you’re asking of me is ridiculous, you know._

_C-01  
Of course it is, Professor Nettle. We’re scientists. It’s our job to chase after the ridiculous things. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to arrange for a pickup._

_[END RECORDING.]_

* * *

Thom knew better than to ask whether or not the group should go after Bill. Sure, he liked the guy and even felt sorry for him, but he knew the way Lanette’s temper worked. He knew that whenever Lanette was pissed off, she walked stiffly with her fists balled so tightly it was a wonder blood didn’t start dripping from her curled fingers. He knew that when she was pissed off, she glared straight ahead, tightened her mouth into a line, and refused to speak except to bark orders to Officer Jenny. And he knew that any disruption in this behavior would not result in a pretty sight. Thom never had scars or bruises from what Lanette did, but he remembered that look of white-hot fury she gave him every time she roared. To be frank, her temper scared him. As beautiful and stately as Lanette Chastain was, her temper scared him to the core.

Right then, she had all the signs. Back straight. Mouth in a line. Fists tight. Gruff, soft voice barking orders to Officer Jenny to lead the clean-up. And Thom stayed out of the way for the most part, hand in his pocket and fingers brushing his cell phone. He knew he needed to report the battle and Bill’s escape, but not now. Not until long after they reached Fallarbor Town. Sure, Bill would be who knew where by then, but Thom’s contact reassured him that D.E.V.A. had a means of tracking down the ixodida. That ixodida specifically.

It was all weird. He knew that. And as the hunting party hiked back into town, he used that as a distraction from Lanette’s rage. There were multiple things weird about this entire situation, actually. Thom already knew that the ixodida could be intelligent; D.E.V.A. had warned him that much. But he had a list of questions about his mission that he knew D.E.V.A. had no interest in answering, and that bothered him to no end.

And shortly after crossing the border into Fallarbor Town, they added another question to the mix. Namely: why were they there?

The hunting party froze, and Thom knew that all eyes were fixed on the black vans and helicopter sitting in the town center. They all watched the black-suited figures emerging from the vehicles and gathering into a swarm before them. No one said anything for several minutes, but words were rushing through Thom’s mind in a flurry of panic. Words he would never say in front of Raye.

One of the black-suited figures strode forward confidently, and Thom recognized her. She was tall and willowy, and as she walked, her wavy, dark green ponytail bounced behind her. Thom hadn’t realized it when she gave him his cell phone ages ago, but now that he knew Raye and Bill, he noticed one important fact about this woman, this Agent Kaph.

Her face looked exactly like theirs.

Lanette seemed to notice this too. “You,” she growled.

Officer Jenny tensed her back and reached out to grab Lanette’s shoulder. But Lanette shrugged her off, shooting the police officer a warning glare before turning back to Agent Kaph.

“Long time, no see, Lanette,” the agent said. Kaph didn’t smile. She only pulled off her sunglasses to stare Lanette down with brown eyes. Deep brown eyes that resembled Raye’s. That resembled Bill’s.

Thom kept his gaze steady on his D.E.V.A. contact, but out of the corner of his field of vision, he could see Lanette trembling.

“You,” she repeated. “What’s this all about? What are you doing here?”

“Business,” Kaph answered. She slipped her glasses into her breast pocket. “I’ll make this quick. I’m here on behalf of the Bureau of Internal Affairs. We’ve secured a safe zone in Rustboro for all survivors of the ixodida epidemic, and we have orders to relocate your entire town there. You’ll be given ample supplies and protection via the Japanese Defense Forces. We’re also well-aware of your militia. They’ll be debriefed and offered services from the JDF’s own clinical psychologists.” She folded her hands in front of her. “Any questions?”

Lanette narrowed her eyes. “Where were you ten minutes ago?”

“We’re also aware of your altercation with the ixodida forces,” Kaph said.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Lanette spat.

Kaph frowned. “Our orders did not contain instructions for involvement with the ixodida.”

Lanette surged forward and struck like a snake. Her fingers snapped around Kaph’s lapels, and she pulled the agent roughly towards her.

“Nineteen people died in that interaction, Christa. Nineteen innocent people.”

Kaph blinked at Lanette, but when her eyes opened, the lids only came up halfway. Her hand slipped into her pocket. “And as those nineteen people died, my little brother ripped apart an ixodida, and my baby sister disappeared. How do you think I feel about being ordered to stand by and watch?”

Thom stopped, and he could feel all the blood rush from his face. His hand jammed into his pocket again, and for the first time, he could feel the cell phone buzz. A message. A set of orders. He swallowed hard and looked back up. Kaph was staring intently at him, but Lanette’s grip—Lanette’s paling hands—loosened around the agent’s lapels.

“Raye’s gone?” she murmured. “But…”

“The hole in the basement of the pokémon center,” Kaph told her. “She went through there.”

“That leads to an ixodida nest!” Officer Jenny blurted out.

“Not necessarily,” Kaph replied. “Our personnel have located alternate exits along that path. She could have taken any one of them. But I do see what you’re saying. All of those exits are still very close to the ixodida nest. No matter which way you look at it, she could be coming dangerously close to the ixodida, and given that we don’t yet know much about their nest structure or what happens after a single monarch is killed, I can see why you would be worried too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Thom could see three black-suited figures grab Officer Jenny. She shouted and twisted in their grasp, trying to break free and get at Thom. But Thom himself couldn’t move. He knew that he had to, but … he couldn’t. So he stood and watched as Lanette’s hands tightened around Kaph’s suit again.

“And you don’t care?!” she screamed.

With movements quicker than Lanette’s strike, Kaph snapped her hands around the researcher’s wrists and rolled them. Lanette shrieked and twisted in Kaph’s grip until she stood with her back to the agent. Kaph’s arms wrapped around Lanette and held her tightly as both of their eyes snapped to Thom.

“Thomas Wattson,” Kaph said. “You have your orders. Go!”

This snapped Thom out of his daze. Shaking off the remnants of his shock, he turned and bolted back the way the party had come. No one chased him. That much he knew, even without the glance he threw over his shoulder towards the agents surrounding the hunting party. But something inside him told him he needed to run as fast and as far away as he could. And because of that, he burst out of the town minutes later but kept running. He kept running long after his lungs and throat burned. He kept running long after his legs turned to gelatin. He kept running long after any common sense he had told him to stop.

At the same time, his hands fumbled into his pockets, grasping at his cell phone. But it was only when he entered the ash fields, entered the shadow of Mt. Chimney, that he was able to pull it out. Even as he continued running, he glanced at its face.

There were only two sentences, sent by the number he knew to be Kaph’s. Both of them were two words long, forming a perfect square of letters on the cell phone’s tiny screen.

_Find them.  
Help Bill._

In the distance, Thom could hear the angry, blood-curdling scream of Lanette. Tearing his eyes away from his cell phone in surprise, he stumbled and toppled into the ashy grass. Thick clouds curled up around him and enveloped him in a gray haze. As he coughed and sat up, he turned his eyes and squinted through the ash towards Fallarbor. He could no longer see the town, but he knew that somewhere inside its limits was a woman who was not only breaking free but also was probably out for his blood by now. With a sigh, he glanced back down at the screen of his cell phone, watching it become more and more visible as the dust around him settled.

“Aw man,” he grumbled. “I am so screwed.”

* * *

Bill awoke to the earthy, sweet smell of incense and tea, and with that, he groaned heavily. His head felt foggy and hot, and a throbbing pain pulsed across his skull. Neither of these sensations were helped by the dry, heady smell of the incense, nor were they helped by the fact that Bill knew exactly where he was. Twisting around in his half-sleep, he pulled the cushions of Adam’s perch close and slowly opened his eyes. Next to his head was a silver teakettle with ornate, spiraling designs etched into its surface. A hand reached out for its handle and tipped its curved spout into a small, white, ceramic cup next to it. Fragrant, brown tea spilled into the cup for several long, drawn-out seconds. Then the hand righted the kettle and moved the cup and its matching saucer in front of Bill’s face.

“Awake?” Adam asked.

“Is that a trick question?” Bill muttered back.

“Sarcasm. Good. I had hoped we would not have a repeat of our last encounter in this place.”

“I hate you.”

“Open emotion is also healthy.” Adam nudged the saucer. “Sit up and drink.”

“I read _Alice in Wonderland_ , you know.”

Adam withdrew its hand. “Relevance?”

Bill squinted at the cup. “That isn’t real tea.”

“Well, if it comforts you at all, this tea will not shrink you.” Adam punctuated this by biting down on the mouthpiece for its hookah. Bill only knew this by the clicking sound of the creature’s fangs against plastic.

“The tea didn’t shrink Alice.”

“Now _that_ is irrelevant.”

Bill growled and turned over to face away from the tea. He wasn’t in the mood for this. “Why am I here?”

Adam sat back, the pillows ruffling around it. “Because of our fusion. There were some side effects I must discuss with you before you regain consciousness.” It paused. “You really should drink that tea, by the way. Illusion or not, it is impolite for a guest to let tea go cold.”

“No, I mean why am I _here_?” Bill replied, his hands moving to his face. “What happened?”

“What do you mean ‘what happened’?” Adam leaned over him. “Surely you remember.”

Bill squinted. The moments after he met the monarch in the volcano were hazy, and he tried to grab onto any wisp of a memory he could. He remembered gold and screaming. Lanette’s eyes and …

“Do you need to borrow my memories?” Adam asked.

Something warm. The feeling of electricity.

“I must admit that this is possibly one of the side effects. Separating our minds as abruptly as I did may leave … holes on your side.”

Smiles. The monarch’s and … and his.

“Wait,” Bill whispered.

Adam pulled back. “Yes?”

The stench of blood. The feeling of his tail sailing through flesh.

So much blood.

“I remember now,” Bill murmured.

He sat up and stared at Adam.

“I remember now,” he repeated. His voice shook.

And the teakettle exploded between them.

Despite the spray of scalding tea and shards of silver, Adam didn’t flinch. But Bill, screaming the instant the tea touched him, tilted backwards and over the edge of the dais. The tent became a whirl of color as Bill smashed into the steps and tumbled down the mountain of chests between Adam’s nest of pillows and the floor. His fingers clawed for purchase, but every time his body hit the steps, he was shocked into momentary, blinding paralysis until he crashed into the landing at last.

Adam was instantly by his side. The creature didn’t even move from Bill’s perspective. It just vanished from the dais and appeared beside him in the exact same moment.

“You must learn to control your temper here,” it said. “Raw anger will only harm you.”

Bill ignored its advice as he pushed himself onto his knees. The pain was already subsiding, and Bill couldn’t tell if that was his own recovery factor, some kind of psychosomatic effect, or simply Adam’s doing. All he knew was that physical pain was quickly flooded out by an emotional one. One of overwhelming anger and sadness.

“It all was for nothing,” he said. “After all that, the entire nest died!”

“Yes,” Adam replied. “May I ask why this has made you angry with _me_?”

“Why?” Bill growled. “Why didn’t it work? What do you ixodida _want_?”

Adam blinked. “This frustration is most unlike you. You are typically more patient with pokémon, are you not?”

Bill shook his head and sobbed. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one of his hands. “And me … why was I so quick to kill that monarch? Blazes...” He pulled his knees up to his chest and shook. “What’s happening...?”

He felt a warm hand grasp his shoulder. Instinct told him to shrug it off, but somehow, he didn’t have the energy to do so. He merely shook under its touch, trembling with uncontrollable sobs.

“You are just now realizing your position,” Adam said. “You are a soldier in a war. It is as simple as that. I am deeply sorry that you must be involved, but you must remember, you are not a murderer. You are only doing what is necessary for the survival of yourself and of others.”

“Adam, all those people _died_ ,” Bill replied.

“Those ixodida died because they had to,” Adam told him. “They will not accept peace. I have told you this many times. Now you have seen with your own eyes why they will not, and you are having difficulty processing it. That is all.”

Bill shook his head again. “I don’t understand. What do you _want_?”

Adam sighed, and its hand moved. Bill felt gentle fingers grasp his chin and move it until he looked directly at his symbiont. Adam’s face was as expressionless as usual, but Bill could swear there was something in the way it looked at him—a kind of pity in its eyes that made the blankness somehow softer than it would have been otherwise.

After a few seconds of complete silence, Adam pulled away and stood. It padded to the drawers set into the stairs and pulled one out slowly. Reaching inside, it rattled something until it removed a wooden box with intricate, three-armed spirals adorning its surface. Adam turned to face Bill, resting one hand on top of the box while the other held it from underneath.

“I think you are ready,” Adam said.

“For … for what?” Bill asked quietly.

“For learning about where we come from.”

Adam opened the box, and a blue light surged forth from inside it. The light twisted in the air, forming a blue tendril that flowed from the box to the space between Adam and Bill. It snaked around them and glided upward until it swirled into a ball. A white light pulsed from within it twice before it burst into a brilliant flash. Bill flinched, shutting his eyes tightly and turning away until the light faded. When he opened them again, he felt his heart stop.

All around him, he saw stars. Literal stars, hanging in a black and violet expanse of space. But directly in front of him—that was a sight that dwarfed the beauty all around him. There, before Adam and Bill, were three objects. The first and largest was a giant, blue orb with bands of clouds swirling across its surface. In the distance beyond the orb was a star, a twinkling ruby hanging bright but tiny some distance away from the blue mass. And the third object, smaller than the star but closer, drifted slowly around the blue ball. Across the smallest orb, oceans sparkled, divided by two giant landmasses and sprays of islands. The larger masses of land were covered with thick patches of green, lanced only by a wide, brown strip of desert across the equator.

“Bill,” Adam said, “allow me to introduce you to our homeworld, the gas giant Nila and its fertile moon Avani.”

Swallowing hard, Bill struggled to find his voice. At last, he spoke, his voice hoarse. “W-what is this?”

For once, Adam didn’t offer a snarky response. Rather, the parasite looked at him with a blank expression and responded evenly, patiently.

“A gas giant orbiting a red dwarf in what you know as the Carina-Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. The gas giant is, of course, not inhabited by intelligent life, but the moon...”

Adam reached out to grasp the tiny moon. As soon as its claws brushed the oceans dotting the orb, the whole thing burst into a flash of blue light. When it faded this time, Bill found himself outside of the tent, deep in the broad-leafed forest. Or he would have, if he wasn’t temporarily blinded.

Blinking away the remnants of the blue light, Bill shook his head and turned to Adam.

“Tell me. And I want a straight answer this time. If I follow you, will you actually answer my question?” he asked.

Adam turned away and began walking past the trees. Bill felt his breath catch in his throat before he stormed after his symbiont. All the while, he looked around the forest, at the sight of the gas giant peeking through the broad-leaved canopy, at all of the little details. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring; Bill couldn’t deny that. But something about it bothered him. Something extremely important.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Adam!”

The symbiont didn’t stop. It walked on, pushing through the trees until it reached a stone structure jutting out of the soil. As Bill caught up with Adam, he glanced at it and realized immediately what it was: a cave. It looked artificial: hewn out of the stone by hand, rather than formed by nature. Intricate carvings—swirling patterns and a series of circles and lines interconnected with each other—scrawled up the smooth sides of the cave’s mouth, and just inside the opening, the path appeared to be made out of cobblestone, rather than mere earth. In the ceiling of the cave, colored jewels provided the only light, shedding a purple-pink glow onto the cobblestone path every few feet. The sight of this bothered Bill as well, even though he thought that this, too, was beautiful.

“Adam,” he said. “May I ask you a question?”

His partner started down the path, but without looking back, it said, “All of your questions will soon have answers. Have patience.”

“I doubt this one will,” Bill replied as he followed. “And before I ask it, I want to know if you’ll give me a straight, honest answer.”

“Of course,” Adam said without hesitation. “Have I ever given you any doubt that you could trust me?”

“Yes.”

Even then, Adam didn’t stop, although it sent a blank-faced glance over its shoulder. “That is rather unkind of you.”

Bill sighed heavily. “We’re not starting this argument again. Will you give me a straight answer if I ask you a question?”

“This is the time when you learn everything about what I am and where I came from,” Adam told him. “If your question has to do with either of those subjects, then yes, I will give you a straight answer.”

“Good.” Bill stopped. “What is all of this?”

“My memories, of course,” Adam replied.

“I thought as much. Then may I ask you another question?”

“Will that be your last?”

“For now.”

It was at that point that Adam stopped. “Then ask.”

“Right. Adam...” Bill motioned to the cave. They were deep enough underground that the surface was no longer visible, but Bill felt he had enough of an example all around him to support his one nagging question. “In your natural form, you don’t have eyes. How can these be your memories?”

Adam turned to scrutinize its host. This was yet another moment in which Bill knew the creature would have smiled if it could, and because of that, he felt himself shudder. But this time, he stood his ground. He steeled himself. He stared back, steady and determined and ready to rush Adam at a moment’s notice.

“Every day, your intelligence astounds me,” Adam said. “Your mind is so alien.”

“ _My_ mind?” Bill scoffed.

“Yes. It is so simple, yet with an astuteness and cleverness that is very rare among the beings of the cosmos. It is a shame that our kind consistently underestimates Earth and its inhabitants. All of you are possibly the most fascinating creatures in our galaxy.”

“Adam,” Bill warned.

It held up a hand. “But yes. You are very correct in picking up on that detail. And I must apologize. I was not wholly truthful just now. These are not just my memories. They are shared memories.”

“Shared memories?” Bill asked.

Adam turned and motioned for its host to follow. “Yes. These are the memories of the first hosts.”

Bill raised his eyebrows. “The first hosts?”

“Yes,” Adam said. “Bill, it is counterproductive to continue repeating me. Come. I must show you them. You must understand what they are.”

Aliens! It took all of Bill’s willpower to walk calmly behind Adam, rather than jump or dash forward. Certainly, he had already gone through a literal first contact with Adam, but to see a real extraterrestrial species in its natural habitat? The scientist within him was alive, well, and screaming in excitement. And it was then that Bill realized how much he missed this, the thrill of seeing something new and different as an observer, as a researcher. He couldn’t help it. His heart pounded as he and Adam descended through the tunnel and approached the carved archway—the twin to the entrance—at the end.

Adam stopped there, just before the opening. Bill did too, his eyes fixed on the hazy, violet glow just before him. He couldn’t make out what was beyond it, and because of that, he moved his eyes from the door to Adam and back again.

“What?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

“Your heart rate has increased,” Adam told him. It placed a hand on its chest. “I can feel it.”

Immediately, a blush blossomed across Bill’s face. “Can you blame me?”

Adam gave him another unreadable look. “Calm yourself, Bill. I want you to pay attention to what I have to say.”

With that, it passed through the archway, and seconds later, Bill followed. A blinding flash of violet light blossomed across Bill’s vision, forcing him to blink rapidly once again. Then, slowly, his vision resolved, this time into a giant chamber. Stone paths wound around the walls, twisting down to a bubbling, golden pool at the bottom. Stone arches, mirrors of the one Bill stood under, dotted the walls along the path, framed with glowing, colored jewels. A violet crystal hung far above the chamber, directly in the center of the wall, and it was the internal glow of this piece that illuminated the cave. Beneath the glow, strange shapes—ones that looked like stingrays made of reflective, black metal—flitted back and forth from path to path, and as one zoomed close by, Bill realized it wasn’t a creature at all but instead a vehicle, a small hover car carrying creatures he couldn’t recognize. Tearing his eyes away from the car, Bill glanced around the chamber to find more of these creatures on each path—more tall, willowy, gray creatures in long, rainbow colored robes that hung all the way down to the ground. They reminded Bill of giant cats: pointed-eared, elegant beings with long, thin tails and large, golden eyes, gliding up the paths as they chattered in quiet buzzes.

And they were beautiful to Bill. The chamber was beautiful. The cars were beautiful. This whole vision was beautiful.

But then, Bill’s breath caught in his throat for a second time. It wasn’t because the sight was awe-inspiring. It was because he recognized this. And it only took him a second to put a name to it.

“This is the nest in Mt. Chimney,” he said.

“Yes. In a way,” Adam replied. Its voice turned slightly bitter. “I do not know why those ixodida created such a similar place. Perhaps they were attempting to emulate layouts they were already familiar with. But what you see here is not Mt. Chimney; rather, it is why I was so upset upon seeing the nest. I apologize for not explaining this to you earlier, but this? This was our home. Vaidurya, capital of the Relian Empire.”

Bill looked at him. “The what?”

“The Relian Empire,” Adam repeated with a glance towards its host. Then, it swept an arm out in a long, dramatic motion towards the creatures. “Bill, I would like to introduce you to the dominant species of Avani, the first hosts … the Relians.”

“The Relians...” Bill rolled the word in his mouth, as if to test it. When Adam began walking up the pathway, Bill followed, but only with half his mind focused on where he was going. His eyes were trained on the Relians, studying each of them as they went about their daily lives.

As extraordinary as they looked at first glance, they almost seemed … ordinary to Bill. Some walked in pairs or groups, their hands looping in gestures as they chattered fervently to each other in conversations Bill couldn’t understand. Others walked alone, their arms full of brightly colored packages and their eyes determined and steady. Smaller Relians ran up the streets, their paths weaving back and forth as they chased after one another or after rainbow-colored balls that hovered in the air in front of them. A handful of tall Relians walked with small ones in their arms or holding their hands. Parents with children. Children at play. Adults with groceries. Relians with each other. They seemed almost human, had they not been seven-feet-tall and cat-like. Even their faces were almost human, each displaying different expressions that were completely recognizable to him: happy, sad, determined, angry … everything. They seemed so unlike the ixodida that it was almost a shock to Bill.

And because of that, because of how human they seemed, Bill was almost afraid to say anything, but he knew the next question was really the most important one he could ask.

“Adam,” he said softly, “what happened to them?”

“We will get to that,” it replied. “Come. I will tell you the story as we walk.”

Bill nodded and turned back to his symbiont. He picked up the pace now, striving to keep close to Adam with each step. His ears strained to listen carefully as Adam began.

“The Relians are an ancient race,” it told him. “They have histories that would date back for thousands upon thousands of years, had they been born on Earth. But they were also peaceful and technologically advanced, perhaps more so than any other in the galaxy. I wish I had time to show you all the fantastic things they created. The two you see here—” It motioned to the cars and the stone lights. “—are not enough to represent the wealth of inventions the Relians created in their long history. It was for this reason that they attracted the attention of other beings in the galaxy. You see, Bill, the Relians are a curious race. Of course they explored the stars. They were among the first to do so, in fact. But they did so alone, as they have always preferred to observe, rather than interact.”

Adam turned to a large, stone entrance at the top of the path. Bill stopped next to it and looked at the archway. He realized instantly that this entrance, this intricate, stone archway, was analogous to the opening of the throne room inside the Mt. Chimney nest. So he had a feeling he already knew exactly what was beyond the violet glow filling this stone threshold.

“There are many other beings in this galaxy,” it continued. “I know you have deduced this the moment I confirmed to you that I am not of your planet, but it is important to emphasize. Humans are not alone in this universe. As such, you must also know that politics is not a concept exclusive to Earth, either. The galaxy is rife with factions and diplomacy, and although the Relians avoided it among themselves by combining their races under one banner, they could not escape it between planets.”

“What do you mean?” Bill asked, his eyes refusing to move from the doorway.

“Out there, there is a federation,” Adam explained. “We call it the Intergalactic Association. It is a fellowship of many planets, led by a congress that calls itself the Galactic Committee. In theory, it is a benign idea wherein worlds share resources and knowledge to create an interplanetary utopia. However, in practice, it is a diplomatic mess, a tense balance between one senator and another in which the fate of entire planets depend on the fragile agreements between flawed individuals. Yet to refuse membership into the Intergalactic Association when it is offered is to put your planet at risk of being considered a hostile force. Imagine that you have hundreds of planets’ military forces wary of your every action. For that reason, the Relians were torn. Do they join the Intergalactic Association and benefit from its philosophy and protection at the cost of their independence, or do they join the lawless planets that stand alone and unprotected from the Association’s scrutiny?”

Adam passed through the doorway, and once again, Bill followed closely. Another brilliant light flashed before Bill’s eyes, this time fading quickly into a stone throne room. It resembled the one Bill had seen in Mt. Chimney, but this one seemed finished. Its walls were smoother, its lights brighter, and on its floor was a violet rug leading straight to a dais, upon which sat a smooth, golden throne.

There were cat people everywhere. Crowds stood at attention along the walls, one sat upon the throne, and on either side of the throne, there were small ones. Most of the cat people were dressed in ornate robes of violet and gold, but the one on the throne wore something more exquisite: a robe of every color, with gold swirls playing across the hems and glowing, colored jewels sewn in a straight line down the front. The kittens on either side of it wore robes just as colorful and ornate, save for the lack of jewels sewn into the material. Not a single Relian moved. Not to blink. Not to shift on their feet. Not even to acknowledge one another. The Relians simply existed, decorating the stone room like models in a painting. And at that realization, Bill could feel his skin crawl. To him, it was as if he and Adam were standing smack in the middle of a photograph. It wasn’t a sensation he particularly enjoyed.

“The Relians came up with a ridiculous solution, really,” Adam said. “Would you like to hazard a guess on what they did?”

Bill kept his eyes on the Relians. His voice, when it spilled out of his mouth, was faint and vague. “I don’t know.”

At that, Adam scoffed and moved its hands to its hips. “You see, Bill, the Relian people lived under an empire, and Relians themselves live for a long time. Yet the imperial family lives longer than most by necessity. An empire depends on its crown. Of course the imperial family had to adapt in order to maintain its bloodline. And with a peaceful, united race, no one had ever thought to take the throne. Yes, I know that may sound absurd, but it is true. No one had ever thought of it. And why should they, if the imperial family saw to it that their people flourished? So you had an ancient dynasty, ruled by an ancient monarchy, passed down through eons from parent to eldest child. This caused a bit of a problem. More than one, really. Not only was there the dilemma concerning the Intergalactic Association, but you also had the issue that was the fact that the emperor was old. Very old, Bill. And he had two possible heirs.”

Suddenly, the image began to move … in a way. The emperor on the golden throne began to rise, but his movements were jerky, as if he was a character in a very old flip book animation. The kittens beside him shifted as well, moving in the same halting, flashing steps as their father. With every step the three of them took, they each got older. The emperor’s gray skin grew wrinkled and pale, and his body shriveled until his limbs were sticks at his sides. At the same time, the kittens grew taller and more willowy, their robes stretching out to flow elegantly around their lithe forms as they towered over their father.

“You see, late in their years, the emperor and the empress gave birth to two girls—identical twins,” Adam continued. “In the Relian culture, much in the same way as among you humans, twins are significant. Twins are destined for greatness. And to have the imperial family give birth to twin princesses at a time when it was faced with political turmoil? All of Avani took that as an omen. Of course they used the princesses as their solution. That was only natural. Why struggle to raise one child with one set of ideals when you could raise two? So with that, they took the girls and raised them to follow different paths.” Adam motioned to the cat on the left, and a red aura flared around her. “Ahura, raised on the path of wisdom and peace, was trained to become the empress and lead the Relians to unification with the Intergalactic Association.” The symbiont moved its hand to the second cat, whose aura flared green. “Angra, raised on the path of passion and righteousness, was trained to become the empress and defend the Relians against the Intergalactic Association, even if it meant war.” Adam lowered its hand. “The twin who would ascend the throne was to be decided upon the emperor’s dying breaths, by the emperor himself.”

Bill looked at Adam, tearing his eyes away from the two cats for the first time. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, but his emotions were otherwise restrained—oddly so, from Adam’s perspective. “So to put it simply, the fate of the entire planet came down to a pair of children trained to pursue two very specific and different goals with the intent of having only one of them fulfill the purpose imposed on them by their father? And one of these children was literally trained for war, yet no one saw this as being a horrendous idea?”

“Basically?” Adam shrugged and glanced back at Bill with a look that made it clear that the symbiont was studying him carefully. “Yes.”

“Terribly sorry, Adam. I don’t think I have a word for how stupid that is.”

“I do not remember ever calling it a wise idea.”

Bill frowned. “Nonetheless … weren’t the Relians the most technologically advanced people in the galaxy?”

“Technological genius does not equal capacity to make sound decisions,” Adam commented as it stared pointedly at Bill.

For the next few seconds, Bill glared back as he dwelled on what Adam was implying. “You know what? I’m going to ignore that. Continue.”

“As can be expected,” Adam immediately said as it turned back to the imperial family, “the old emperor grew too old for the throne. Relian technology is far beyond that of any other planet, but it cannot prevent a body from decomposing. Rather, it couldn’t at the time that the emperor died.”

Before them, the scene continued to move. The emperor, who had been struggling to stand until that point, finally collapsed, his body flashing with each jerking movement. At his sides, his daughters swooped in, reaching out to grab the arms of their father. The crowds of Relians to the sides of the room burst into action, moving forward in jerking waves. Their mouths—all of their mouths—opened in silent screams until the emperor fell to his knees. Then, with a gnarled hand, he reached up, towards both of his daughters.

“The emperor chose one to ascend the throne,” Adam explained, its voice growing quiet. “And she did. Gracefully, albeit with a heavy heart. They both loved their father, Bill. Although the old emperor had been a fool in how he raised his daughters, he was wise and kind. Strong and just. When he died, the empire lost one of its greatest leaders.”

Adam waved a hand over the scene. The emperor’s body vanished with a swirl of gray and gold. The Relians swept back into their positions at the sides of the room. One sister once again stood at attention to the right side of the golden throne, and the other sat upon the throne, straight and tall and expressionless.

“The first few … months, I suppose you would call them, were ones of glory,” Adam said. “The empress that was chosen was a brilliant ruler, the wiser of the twins. Though her reign was brief, she ruled fairly.”

Commoner Relians flashed in and out of the scene, bowing before the empress and raising their hands up in silent pleas. The empress regarded them all with the same stoic expression before rising off her throne. Gradually, in flickering movements, she glided down the dais as commoners flashed in and out of existence before her. At last, as she stood at the bottom of the steps, she reached out and touched the head of one of them. It stopped, gazing up at her with wide eyes.

“She intended on keeping her promise,” Adam continued, “on fulfilling the purpose she was born and trained to pursue. But before she could rally her people behind her, something else happened.”

“What?” Bill asked.

“Her sister betrayed her,” Adam told him.

Behind the empress, the other twin lifted her chin, her eyes flashing as she moved. It was the first truly fluid moment Bill had seen in this room thus far, and something about it seemed wrong. He swallowed but kept his eyes on her.

“What happened?” he murmured.

“What do you think happened?” Adam replied. “She questioned her sister’s ability to lead. And so, she sought to create a weapon in order to overthrow her.”

“A weapon?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Adam replied.

The room dissolved around them, reforming into a completely new space. This, too, was a still scene, with Relians dressed in white locked in place like a photograph. But this time, the room wasn’t well-lit or open. It was instead a darkened space cluttered with glassy cylinders. Suspended in each tube were tiny balls of light—hundreds of them in a rainbow of colors. At one end of the room, there was a door, and it was there that the princess suddenly appeared. She blinked in and out of sight, reappearing closer and closer to one tube in the back wall. The Relians she passed turned their heads and pulled away from other tubes to gather around their princess. And then, at last, they stopped: an entire horde of Relians and their princess standing motionless before a lone tube in the back of the room. There was only one color in this tube. Red. Brilliant, violent red.

Bill could feel his throat tighten. He knew what Adam was about to say before it spoke, but he waited for it to confirm his suspicions.

“Yes,” Adam told him, “she created us.”

Abruptly, the princess’s form flashed, her fist smashing against the tube. The glass gave instantly, spilling the tube’s contents all over the floor. Her hand pulled away, one set of claws holding onto a single parasite while the other set opened her shirt. In the next flash, the parasite was against her chest. All around her, the Relians in white scrambled in the same jerking, flashing movements to get out of the way of the wave, but one by one, they slipped, they fell, they toppled into the masses of angry, blood red. But Bill couldn’t watch them. It wasn’t that he was squeamish at that moment. It was that all of his attention was focused on one being and one being only: the princess. He watched as her arms rose, claws splayed towards the ceiling as tendrils laced across her bare chest. He watched her skin bubble and blister and split open to reveal black flesh underneath. He watched her drop to all fours, her teeth bared and her ears flat against her head. All the beauty he had seen in the Relians was gone at once, replaced by something feral and angry and ugly.

Bill had never been afraid of pokémon or any other creature, but he was afraid of the princess right then, right at that very moment.

No. Not just afraid. He was blindingly _terrified_ of her.

Adam didn’t have the mercy of acknowledging his fear. It just continued smoothly into the next part of the story, as if what it was seeing was completely ordinary.

“The Relian Empire could not resist her. She slaughtered the empress’s forces and assumed power, and with the other ixodida under her control, she quickly established an iron-fisted rule,” it said.

Around them, the scene shifted back into the throne room. The empress stood with her body half-turned towards the door and with her ears perked and straight. At her sides, four Relians posed in battle stances, claws out and bodies low. Metal armor glinted off their lithe forms. In a flash, the doors burst open, and the princess stood in the doorway, her body barely more than a silhouette in the threshold. Her arm extended, and two infected Relians—one with flames licking off its body and the other with skin studded with ice crystals—bounded forward, towards the armored guards. In the next flash, the princess’s companions were on top of the guards. Flame jets burst from the skin of the fire-type to engulf two of the empress’s guards, and ice crystals grew from the hands of the other ixodida to swallow the remaining soldiers where it touched them.

Then, there was the princess herself. Her body cut through the air, making a beeline directly for her sister. The empress cringed, her wide eyes locked onto those of the princess.

And then, suddenly, all Bill could see was blackness.

Blackness until violet fire erupted around him.

The next few scenes flashed quickly before Bill’s eyes. The sight of infected Relians marching in lines down the stone pathways of Vaidurya. Uninfected Relians fleeing in tight groups ahead of the ixodida troops. Relians chained together in dark, craggy rooms. Ixodida claws circling the Relians’ chains. Relians huddled in small groups within the tube-filled laboratory. Ixodida with crystal orbs containing free-floating parasites towering over uninfected Relians. One scene after another, each one containing another Relian with tear-filled eyes or another expressionless ixodida, burst across Bill’s vision and faded away like firecrackers. They hurt about as much too. With each flash, Bill could feel another spike of cold lance into his heart, and although it was irrational and although the practical part of his brain told him he needed to think things through, he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help but feel the white-hot burn of rage bubbling up from the bottom of his chest. At the empress. At the old emperor. At the way this story went. He couldn’t decide. Bill just knew that with each new image, another burst of _something_ inside him threatened to swallow him whole.

And it made him feel sick. Very sick. But he could do nothing but watch, and that made his chest feel hotter.

It was a strangely familiar feeling. One he actually had a word for.

Helplessness.

At last, one final scene appeared. Another dark cavern, another horde of infected Relians. But unlike the tube-filled room, this room was neither cramped nor cluttered. It was a wide and long space easily the size of a stadium, with a cluster of machines along one wall and snake-like tubes lining the floor. But at the center of the room, taking up most of the cavernous space, was a single object hovering roughly a story above the ground.

The object in question was a massive thing: a sleek, black craft that spanned the cavern from one wall to the other. Its body was a deep black—black enough that it looked more like the shape of a stingray cut out of thin air than an actual solid object. The only part of it that didn’t look deep, dark black was the pane of blue glass glittering at the front of its body. In Bill’s opinion, to say that it was huge and imposing was an understatement; standing next to it, he felt small, insignificant, powerless. The thing must have been big enough to shadow the entirety of Knot Island, and knowing the Relians at that point, Bill had a feeling it possessed an arsenal large and potent enough to wipe the island and the rest of the Sevii Archipelago off the map.

“What … what is this?” he whispered.

“I think you know,” Adam responded quietly. “The moment one sister usurped the other, the new empress gained control of the entire Relian Empire—and, by extent, all of Avani. Where else would she go next but the stars?”

Bill turned to his partner. “You’re kidding.”

“Not at all,” Adam said. “Was it cliché? Yes. But this empress was never particularly creative in comparison to her sister. Luckily, that was her downfall. It meant she could not predict our response.”

Adam waved a hand before the scene, allowing it to dissolve into the tube-filled laboratory again. The former empress’s metal-clad guards pinned the few ixodida in the room to the floor, allowing their leader to stand at the center of the laboratory. Another uninfected Relian stood in front of her with a crystal orb held in its hands. She gazed at it in awe, her claws curving over the orb as a red glow pulsed within it. In the next instant, her form flashed, and once it resolved, she held the orb in her own hands, watching as cracks laced across its surface.

“We created the Gray Rebellion,” Adam explained. “I recall telling you once that what we were doing was a glorious thing, and it was. Our empress’s—that is to say, the _true_ empress’s … her forces created an underground movement, an entire army of our very own to overwhelm the forces guarding the false ruler’s laboratories. We had the remaining parasite eggs genetically modified, and from these, we were able to fashion an entire clan of a type the false empress’s forces had never assumed. These, Bill, were the steel-type. The Iron Clan.”

Another series of images flashed in front of Bill’s eyes, this time of battles. Steel-type ixodida rushed across stone pathways and flung themselves at the second empress’s forces. Steel-type ixodida slashed at the chains of captured Relians, and steel-type ixodida surged into the room with the black spaceship.

Then, the scene shifted one more time, back to the throne room. This time, the second empress sat upon the gilded throne, her body a black mark against glittering gold. On either side of her were the fire- and ice-type ixodida, and in front of them, two other ixodida stood at attention: one green and covered with flowers and the other white and clad in feathers. Together, all five ixodida stared across the throne room to the open doors. The creature Bill knew to be the other sister—the one he assumed was Ahura, the sister of peace and fairness—stood in the doorway, her skin now glinting and silver. On either side of her, four other steel-type ixodida crouched, ready to strike.

“So your empress … she challenged her sister for the throne?” Bill asked.

“Of course she did,” Adam said.

In the final moment, each of the guards faced one another other in pairs. The fire-type was engulfed in flames as it pinned one of the steel-types to the ground. A second steel-type was tangled in vines sprouting from the grass-type’s skin, but its claws slashed and cut through the tendrils wrapping its body. The ice-type wove a white ribbon of snow around its body while its steel-type opponent swung its glowing tail through the drifts. Overhead, the bird-like flying-type and a steel-type with bright, golden wings were frozen in mid-swoop, their claws grasping at each other. And locked in the middle of the floor were Angra and Ahura, the shadow pinned to the ground by the armor-clad ixodida.

For the first time, Bill moved. He walked forward, slowly and carefully, until he stood over the two sisters. Crouching, he examined their faces closely, staring deep into the glare of the one he assumed was Angra, the sister of war. The one who, unable to wage war against the Intergalactic Alliance, brought it home.

He almost pitied her. She was raised all her life to fulfill a certain purpose. War was all she knew. But the key word there was that he almost pitied her. Even as he stared into her face, he could only see her as she was: expressionless. Alien.

“What happened then?” His voice was nearly inaudible at that point. It was only because the entire scene was silent that Adam could hear him.

“I do not know,” Adam said simply.

All at once, the scene lit up with brilliant, green light, and then, everything went black.

* * *

A set of claws plucked the strap of a bag off a rocky mountainside. It was a tattered bag, clearly something meant for a young human boy, but as the owner of those claws pulled it to his nose, he caught the scent of metal and alien—of a being just like him, yet different. He growled and tore his stony fingers into the flap of the bag until plastic spray bottles spilled onto the ground at his feet. Plucking one of the bottles from the ground, he held it up to the light and swirled it. For a long moment, he watched its liquid contents slosh against the red container. The fingers of his other hand scratched at the yellow handle, at the red and white circle painted onto its side. Something about it seemed familiar. Uncomfortably familiar.

“What are these?” he asked gruffly.

“Who cares?” another voice replied.

The rock-type turned his head to his companion, a stocky ixodida made of pure muscle. This second ixodida didn’t even give the bag or its contents a cursory glance; he was far too busy staring over the edge of Mt. Chimney’s lava tube and into the ixodida nest.

“You do not find this interesting, brother?” the rock-type asked.

His companion snorted. “Hardly. How could you? You know where it came from. The little rogue who raided the Sun Clan. Not that I am not thankful towards him. If that abomination had not intervened, the Sun Clan would still pose a problem for us. Now, with both them and the Flame Clan out of our way, who do you think will lord over this domain on behalf of Her Majesty’s army?”

“What? You?” The rock-type dropped the bag, and a gurgling, grinding sound not unlike chuckling bubbled up from his throat.

At the sound of his companion’s laughter, the fighting-type turned on him. “Do I amuse you, little gnat?”

“Of course you do,” he replied. “You? A general for Her Majesty? You can barely mobilize your drones, let alone manage your entire nest. Why, you are even struggling to care about our true enemy here. How can you possibly hope to impress Her Majesty enough to serve as her general?”

One of the fighting-type’s hands snapped out and gripped the rock-type’s head. Although the stone-armored creature was taller and lither than the fighter, he squeaked and hung limply from his companion’s grip. His own hands grasped at the fighter’s bulky arm as the claws on his head grasped him tighter and tighter.

“Easily,” the fighting-type said. “Perhaps you are intelligent, but your brains mean nothing if they are squished between my fingers. Let me make our competition easier by eliminating your entire nest right here and—”

A vine snapped around his wrist and jerked his arm back. Startled, he released his companion and stumbled in the direction that the vine had pulled him, but within seconds, he lost his footing and crashed to the ground. The rock-type sat where he was dropped, his eyes fixed on his companion and his jaws clenched tightly. He knew better than to laugh in the presence of a general. Or, rather, two.

The first general unwrapped her vines and drew them back into her bright, green arm. She stood at the edge of the lava tube, the wind rustling through the pink petals adorning her body and her long, leaf-like hair. Her hazel eyes settled on the two before her, narrowing dangerously in her long face. Behind the grass-type, a second female ixodida sat on an outcropping of rocks, but by comparison, she was simpler—a bird-like creature covered with white feathers. A pair of wings were folded neatly at her back, and the purple claws of her hands and feet scraped against her rocky perch. She, too, was staring at the two males with narrow, violet eyes.

Two generals. The situation must have been dire if Her Majesty sent two of her remaining generals to their territory.

“Enough,” the grass-type said. “Neither of you are worthy of a position among the Imperial Guard.”

“My lady!” The rock-type dropped to one of his knees, bowed his head, and arched his neck to expose it to her. “We ask for your forgiveness. We meant no transgression.”

She frowned. “See to it that it does not happen again.”

“Yes, my lady.” Cautiously, the rock-type lifted his head. “Now, how may we serve you?”

“We have come to investigate a great disturbance in this sector,” she told them. “Her Majesty has become aware of the fact that her northern general has lost contact, and another of the northern clans has gone inert. We have come to gather your report.”

“It was the humans, my lady!”

The grass-type shifted her gaze to the fighter, who had scrambled to his knees in the meantime. “The humans?”

“Well, the first attack, to be more accurate,” he continued. “The humans had organized themselves into an army that overwhelmed the Flame Clan. The clan leader himself was killed by a warrior riding atop a great, blue bird.”

“The humans possess more power than we have imagined, then,” the bird-like ixodida said quietly.

At that, the grass-type exchanged glances with her companion and then turned back to the males. “Tell us. You said that this was the first attack. Were the humans not responsible for the second as well?”

“Yes and no, my lady,” the rock-type responded. He stooped to pick up the tatters of the bag and held it out to the general. “The Sun Clan attempted to ambush the humans. They would have succeeded too, but their leader had been challenged by a rogue.”

“A rogue?” The grass-type’s claws circled the strap of the bag and brought it to her face.

“Yes. More importantly, please take in the scent of this fabric, my lady. Which clan do you detect?”

The general inhaled deeply and raised her eyebrows. “Metal. The Iron Clan?” She raised her chin to look at the two males. “The Iron Clan is extinct!”

“Apparently not so,” the fighter told her. “I saw it with my own eyes, my lady. There was a member of the Iron Clan here. It was wearing human clothes.”

“What?” She shook her head. “This makes no sense. Even if the Iron Clan had come to this planet with us, the leader of the Sun Clan should have been able to best an Iron rogue.”

“We can only tell you what we know, my lady,” the fighter replied. “It was an Iron rogue that killed the leader of the Sun Clan.”

The generals exchanged another glance, one that prompted the bird-like creature to rise to her feet. Her wings unfurled, and her eyes glared hard at her fellow ixodida.

“I have gathered enough information to discuss matters with Her Majesty,” she announced. “Sister. See to it that this situation is contained until our empress makes a decision.”

Her wings rustled, and she took off like a shot. The grass-type general brought the strap to her nose again as she turned to the males.

“What do you wish for us to do, my lady?” the rock-hide asked.

The fighter pounded one of his fists into a palm. “Track it down and crush it?”

“No,” she answered as she lowered the strap. “Goliath, descend this side of the mountain with your forces to delay this rogue. Samson, you will go to the other side. Contain this rogue in the humans’ nest if Goliath fails.”

“My lady!” the two rogues cried in unison.

Then, after glancing at his partner, the rock-hide, Goliath, rose to his feet. “My lady, I mean no disrespect, but this is an Iron rogue who bested the leader of the Sun Clan. My breed is at a disadvantage to those of the Iron Clan. Surely you cannot wish to have my forces be overwhelmed by this … this creature.”

“For once I am in agreement with our brother,” Samson said. “My lady, send me in his stead. I will see to it that the rogue progresses no further than the mountain.”

“I commend your intelligence,” the general replied, “but my word is final. Our goal is to delay the rogue, not destroy it. We must wait for Her Majesty’s final word.” She turned her head and leered down the mountainside. “Besides. I wish to observe the capabilities of this rogue for myself. Is that understood?”

Both of the monarchs before her shouted their affirmations together, but she was not entirely paying attention to their response. Her eyes had caught sight of movement at the base of the mountain. She squinted just until she could make it out, and it was then that she realized it was a small head of green hair popping out of one of the caves once used by the Sun Clan. Shortly afterwards, a blue and brown blur followed the tiny figure. Neither the human nor the wartortle running beside her noticed the ixodida at the top of the volcano. All of their attention was devoted to bolting down the mountainside, dodging brush and skittering across unstable earth. Partway down the slope, an absol caught up with them and bounded at the girl’s other side to lead her through the ash. After a few seconds of watching them, the grass monarch narrowed her eyes at the human and both pokémon before turning back to her subordinates.

“Good,” she said at last. “Then go.”

Samson and Goliath shouted one last “yes, my lady” before parting ways. Samson twisted his body into a ball and rolled down the side of the volcano; Goliath leapt over the edge and onto the stone paths just inside the lava tube.

But the general remained where she stood. Her eyes were fixed on the girl at the base of the mountain.


End file.
